Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATH OF A MEMBER

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott, OBE, TD, Member for Ripon, and I desire on behalf of the House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. and gallant Member.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Vacant Land (London)

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will seek discussions with industrial companies which have received Government grants and which are moving out of London as

to the future use of the land which becomes vacant once the companies move.

The Minister for Industrial Development (Mr. Christopher Chataway): The use to which such land can be put is already subject to industrial development certificates, office development permits and planning procedures. I do not think that anything further is required.

Mr. Cox: Is the Minister not aware that that kind of pathetic reply is not good enough? After these companies have received, in many cases, millions of pounds of public money to move out, surely local authorities have some right as to the future use that is made of the sites on which those companies existed? At the moment, within London, vast sums of money—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Question Time.

Mr. Chataway: The hon. Member will be aware that the criticism we most often get from Labour benches is that not enough industry is encouraged to move into development areas. Registered vacancies in Greater London are now higher than they have been since 1966, while unemployment is virtually non-existent.

Mr. Cox: I am talking about land.

Mr. Jay: Does the Minister not agree that, although a company is no doubt entitled to get the market value for its land, in a case like this it is not entitled


to decide on the use of the land after it has moved away?

Mr. Chataway: The right hon. Gentleman will know that both central and local government have considerable powers over the use of the land through IDC and ODP policies, and through planning procedures.

British Steel Corporation (Supplies)

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will give a general direction to the British Steel Corporation to expedite the acceptance, completion and delivery of orders in view of the damaging effects on British industry of the present delays.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will give a general direction to the British Steel Corporation to expedite supplies of steel to firms with large export commitments.

The Minister for Industry (Mr. Tom Boardman): No, Sir. The British Steel Corporation is already doing all it can to meet the demand for steel.
May I add that the whole House will, I know, be saddened by the sudden and tragic death of Lord Melchett, who had played such an outstanding and courageous rôle in the British steel industry.

Mrs. Oppenheim: I am sure the whole House would echo what my hon. Friend has said about such an able and devoted man as Lord Melchett and would want to add its condolences to Lady Melchett in the circumstances.
Is my hon. Friend aware that the rest of his answer was not good enough? Does he appreciate that many companies actively engaged in exporting are having to decide whether to delay their exports or to import steel—and steel imports are rising? Is he further aware that many building projects are being seriously delayed as a result of the shortages and the failure, in some cases, even to open order books?

Mr. Boardman: I am sure my hon. Friend will realise that this is not a matter in which the Government can intervene between one customer and another. She will also realise that the

present capacity is dependent upon the investment plans made between three and five years ago, which were then at a much lower level than they have been in the past three years. That capacity cannot be made up quickly.

Mr. Mitchell: We accept that the Government cannot intervene between one firm and another, but have the Government had any discussions with the British Steel Corporation to lay down some general guidelines about the corporation's rationing policy, and which group of exporting firms should be given priority? If they have not done so, will they do so?

Mr. Boardman: The corporation has told me of the general lines which it is following, but it would be wrong for me to intervene in general management decisions at this time. The corporation has obligations to its customers who require steel for work at home and for export purposes. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that total production of steel in the past five months is 13·2 per cent. above the comparable figure last year.

Mr. Rost: I accept that the British steel industry is again letting down the economy, as it has done ever since it was nationalised, but does not my hon. Friend agree that this is a further reflection of the lack of capital investment during the time when the previous Government were responsible for the corporation?

Mr. Boardman: Yes. My hon. Friend knows that investment prior to 18th June 1970 was at a very low level and that it has risen to a very high level during the three years of this administration, especially in the recent plans that have been announced.

Mr. Benn: I should like, Mr. Speaker, to associate myself and my hon. and right hon. Friends with what has been said by the Minister about Lord Melchett. Perhaps we may discuss the other matters on another Question.

Shipping Policy

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what discussions have taken place with Norway concerning a Common Market shipping policy.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Cranley Onslow): None, Sir. But representatives of the United Kingdom and Norway participate regularly in discussions on shipping policy questions in several intergovernmental organisations.

Mr. Marten: Should not we have preliminary discussions with the Norwegians, particularly as the Common Market Commission has put forward an outline proposal that Common Market maritime traffic should be carried on Common Market vessels? Will my hon. Friend now say that the Government will have nothing to do with a restrictive practice such as that?

Mr. Onslow: It is always open to the Norwegians to make their views known, and there are effective channels of communication between them and us. My hon. Friend will remember that last week he was told by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs that we shall bear in mind his concern with the possibility of discrimination against Norway in this as in other matters, and I am sure that nobody will be more assiduous than him in keeping us up to the mark.

Mr. Douglas: In view of the importance of the Norwegian shipping fleet, does not the Minister concede that it is of the utmost importance that the whole of Western Europe should have a coordinated policy not only for shipping but for shipbuilding?

Mr. Onslow: Shipbuilding goes somewhat wide of the mark on this Question. We are aware of the importance of shipping to the Norwegians. The hon. Gentleman may take comfort from the fact that in practice there is a wide measure of agreement in Western Europe on many shipping policy matters.

Coal (Energy Research)

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what amount of money the Government have spent, over each of the past three years, on a national research programme for the development of low-cost energy from coal; and if he will make a statement on the kind of co-operation that is taking place between the United

Kingdom and other countries on this type of research.

Mr. Tom Boardman: None. The primary responsibility for research in this field rests with the National Coal Board,although my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a statutory responsibility to approve the general lines of the board's research activities. Almost the whole of the board's research and development programme, which amounts to £5·3 million in the current year, is aimed at mining coal at the lowest possible cost and increasing its competitiveness as an energy source. There are also a number of proposals for collaborative research being processed through the European Coal and Steel Community machinery with a view to attracting support from Community funds. The board is also continuing to co-operate with the United States of America on a very substantial basis.

Mr. Wainwright: The Minister gives the impression that the Government are not very interested in research into the use of coal as a low-cost source of energy. What encouragement is he giving to the National Coal Board on the fluidised bed combustion system and the coalplex system of burning coal? If it is true that there are more than 33 million tons of coal in stock, what plans have the Government to ensure that the coal is used? Will the Minister consider having another word with the Central Electricity Generating Board about the two oil-fired power stations it wants to build?

Mr. Boardman: On the last point, there are continuing discussions. With regard to the general research programme, my right hon. Friend is advised by the Advisory Council on Research and Development for Fuel and Power, which takes a keen interest in the adequacy of the programme. With regard to fluidised bed combustion, the hon. Gentleman is probably aware that a joint company has been set up by NCB, NRDC and BP to exploit fluidised bed combustion, and experimental work is going ahead on a collaborative basis with the United States.

Mr. Laurance Reed: Given the rapid depletion of world oil resources, surely it is not too soon for the National Coal Board to be thinking about restarting its research programme on how to devise an


economic means of extracting oil from coal?

Mr. Boardman: My hon. Friend knows that a lot of work has been done on this, and a lot is going on now with the United States of America. Close touch is being kept with those developments although the conditions there are somewhat different from those which prevail here.

Mr. Cronin: Does not the Minister agree that the stumbling block of the coal industry for a long time has been the lack of a long-term coherent fuel policy? Is it not unfortunate that the Minister shows such lack of interest in the research that will provide him with the answers to this question?

Mr. Boardman: I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not regard support of £5·3 million per annum as demonstrating a lack of interest in the research. A great deal of research and collaboration is going on and the hon. Gentleman will remember the Coal Industry Act and the large amount of public funds being used to support the coal industry.

Mr. Adam Butler: Will my hon. Friend ensure that at least some of the new generating plants are dual-fired, rather than only oil-fired?

Mr. Boardman: All questions of fuelling are being given careful consideration, and all these factors are being taken into account.

BSA

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will make a further statement about BSA.

Mr. Chataway: Norton Villiers Triumph Limited has offered to acquire the whole of the issued share capital of the Birmingham Small Arms Company Ltd. on terms which were set out in my written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) on 11 th June.
I wish, however, to correct an error in the OFFICIAL REPORT of that answer and confirm that the Department's preference shareholding will carry a right to dividend from 1st August and not 1st May 1976.

Mr. Huckfield: Will the Minister bear in mind that it is now nearly three months since I brought two deputations of shop stewards from the Triumph factory at Meriden to see him, and that they were under the impression that the whole matter could be sorted out in about 10 days? Is he aware of the large number of rumours circulating about closures and redundancies, and will he make it clear to Mr. Dennis Poore that there is a prime need for him to meet the workers as soon as possible?

Mr. Chataway: This is a complex matter. There were seven major agreements to be completed as well as a number of financial arrangements to be made. I have written to Mr. Poore telling him of the meeting I had with the hon. Gentleman and representatives of the employees on 22nd March, and of their expressed wish to meet him.

Antibiotics (United States Sales)

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry why he issued an order under the Shipping Contracts and Commercial Documents Act 1964 instructing the Beecham group of companies not to produce any information or documents held in Great Britain to the United States Department of Justice in connection with an antitrust suit alleging high profits on antibiotic sales in the United States of America.

The Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): As I informed the hon. Member in my answer to his Question on 25th May, the direction was given because it appeared to the Secretary of State that an order made by the district court for the District of Columbia in the United States of America upon the Beecham Group Ltd. to answer certain interrogatories demanded by the plaintiffs in the case constituted an infringement of the jurisdiction to which the United Kingdom was entitled under international law.

Mr. Davis: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain how the Government regard that attitude as being consistent with the attitude they have displayed in the Hoffmann-La Roche affair when that company was accused of making excessive profits and failing to


co-operate to provide information and material to the Monopolies Commission?

Sir G. Howe: The Monopolies Commission would have welcomed additional information from the Roche company but it had no powers under our law to require it to be given. There is no comparison between the limited information that the commission requested from Roche and the much larger mass of information sought of the Beecham Group under the American proceedings. In the Roche proceedings no question arises of infringing foreign jurisdiction because the commission has no power to require information from companies abroad.

Mr. Benn: It is not only the Monopolies Commission legislation which applies here, but also the Counter-Inflation Act, in which the Government asked Parliament to give them power to seek information of a wide character from many firms, including multinational firms resident abroad. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman modify his answer to indicate whether the Government believe that in certain circumstances foreign Governments could object to that information being given?

Sir G. Howe: The question of the extent to which foreign Governments can or cannot object depends to some extent on their legislation, which is a matter of detail in given cases. The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that in making an assessment of allowable costs and proper pricing practices the Price Commission may take account of the apparent validity or non-validity of transfer payments between companies in this country and companies abroad. The extent of enforcement would be a matter of variation in each case. Enforcement by the powers given under the Counter-Inflation Act within this country is the same in relation to a multinational company as it is in relation to a national company within the limits of United Kingdom jurisdiction.

Public Companies (Disclosure of Payments)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will introduce legislation to make it necessary for public companies to indicate in their annual reports which individuals receive from them either more than

£10,000 per annum or benefits of value in excess of £10,000 per annum; and how much is paid for these purposes for each person concerned.

Sir G. Howe: I am at present reviewing the disclosure requirements of the Companies Acts.

Mr. Cronin: While the right hon. and learned Gentleman is making his review, will bear in mind the considerable evidence that extraordinarily large sums of money have been paid to private individuals by some companies and that, while those sums are not necessarily improper, it is desirable for them to be paid in an open and above-board manner, so that shareholders and other interested parties may know about them?

Sir G. Howe: It has been made clear by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that we attach great importance to ensuring that adequate information about the activities of companies is made available to shareholders and others, and the factor mentioned by the hon. Gentleman is one that I shall take into account in my review of the legislation.

Mr. Ridley: I support the object of greater disclosure, but will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that many self-employed people earn more than £10,000 a year, including barristers, bricklayers, and plasterers on the lump?

Sir G. Howe: I bear in mind all the examples mentioned by my hon. Friend. The fact that they are self-employed persons puts them in a slightly different position from those who act as directors of or who are employed in that capacity by companies in which the public subscribe by means of the ownership of shares.

Mr. Sheldon: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister recently said that it was no part of Conservative philosophy that large sums of money should pass between companies and individuals outside what is given in other forms of activity in the professions and other walks of life? In view of the fact that so many people are making large sums of money out of capital gains from


floating companies and elsewhere, what does the right hon. and learned Gentleman intend to do about implementing this part of what now seems to be at least the Prime Minister's policy?

Sir G. Howe: Taxation policy and the policy in relation to company law in respect of this matter have to be considered alongside each other. It is right that there should be disclosure of information to the extent finally judged to be correct. It is right that taxation policy should bear fairly on those within the net of income tax. It is also right that there should be no improper or unfair profits. But it does not follow that in the working of our economy it is right to presume that everyone who makes money is necessarily to be regarded as a villain. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister put the matter in its proper perspective, and I have nothing to add to what he said.

Managerial and Supervisory Boards

Mr. Skeet: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many representations he has received on the issue of managerial and supervisory boards as part of the revised structure for British industry.

Sir G. Howe: I have received observations on the idea of a two-tier board from a number of individuals and organisations.

Mr. Skeet: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that this is one of the most important decisions that the Government will be called upon to take under the fifth directive? Is he also aware of the importance of seeing that the worker is associated with his own company and is given an opportunity to participate in high-level decisions? How does my right hon. and learned Friend intend to handle this matter? Will he do it by way of the new Companies Bill, or by some other method?

Sir G. Howe: I agree that this is a very important issue, to which the Government are giving serious consideration. We believe that it is important that there should be wide and informed public discussion about it. We shall shortly be bringing forward our proposals for the amendment of company law generally

and in due course we shall be making available some suggestions, in the light of the EEC directive, as to the way that the point that my hon. Friend raises can be publicly considered and discussed. While the Government regard this as a matter of substantial importance, they do not conclude that it is easy to find a single solution in a single legislative means for the important business of seeing that those employed in companies or elsewhere are properly associated with and consulted about decisions affecting their interests.

Mr. Benn: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman in a position to say whether the Government's proposals will be published as a Green Paper, so that there will be no commitment about them and so as to allow full discussion to take place? Secondly, will he confirm that what he has in mind is not window-dressing but a real transfer of power to those working in industry? Thirdly, will there be an opportunity for the House to determine this, or are we in this matter, as in so many others, to be told what we are allowed or forced to do by the European Commission?

Sir G. Howe: Whatever the right hon. Gentleman may believe about window-dressing, there will be no element of window-dressing about our proposals in this respect. I shall bear in mind, with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, the necessity for Parliament to join in the discussion of these matters, along with the many parties interested in them. With that in mind, the probability is that our proposals in respect of this matter will be published in the form of a Green Paper. It is clear from what has been said and done in Europe and in different European countries, and from opinions expressed in this country, that no one, including the right hon. Gentleman, is sure that he has identified the right way to approach this problem, which affects the whole of British industry.

Mr. Biffen: Will my right hon. and learned Friend reflect upon the great virtue of publishing a Green Paper on this subject so that Parliament may have an opportunity to express a view upon it and, above all—without entering too emotionally into relationships between


this and other law-making institutions—upon the fact that industrial relations, of which this is part, are far too important a matter for us to receive our law on them written in Brussels and handed to us on a plate?

Sir G. Howe: There is no question of this matter proceeding in the way described by my hon. Friend. Proposals made from Brussels in the context of the European Economic Communities are still in the form of drafts and are still under discussion. It is recognised in Europe, as it is in this country, that there is no simple or direct way through. That is why I say that the Government will be anxious to hear views and to have this matter widely discussed.

Mr. Heffer: As we are all obviously dedicated to workers' self-management and workers' control in industry, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether, in the Green Paper, the views of Professor G. D. H. Cole, who argued for many years on the question of worker participation in management, will be taken into account and perhaps followed by the Government?

Sir G. Howe: I think that the last proposition is not immediately probable. As for the hon. Gentleman's earlier observation, that is the difficulty about an important human, social and industrial problem of this kind. It is so easy to find oneself attached to slogans, phrases, words and jargon. I have no doubt about the importance of the problems covered here, but I warn the hon. Gentleman, without any disrespect, against getting himself too firmly hooked even on those slogans to which he is most attached.

Industrial Development

Mr. Sidney Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the Government's policy towards applications for natural expansion of firms and industries in places outside the assisted areas.

Mr. Chataway: Industrial development certificates are generally approved for projects with strong local ties and modernisation schemes involving some increase in employment.

Mr. Chapman: I appreciate the need for new industry in the development and other assisted areas, but will my right

hon. Friend confirm that this will not be at the expense of the natural expansion of firms in other areas? Does my right hon. Friend recognise the imbalance that this causes industry in such places as Birmingham? Will he undertake to consider and judge each application for an IDC on its merits?

Mr. Chataway: Yes. I can give that undertaking to my hon. Friend. We have taken a more flexible attitude towards IDCs, especially since the spring of last year, and have been anxious to ensure that they are not used to frustrate investment which is not, of its nature, mobile.

Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that some areas, such as North Staffordshire, do not receive anything like the assistance that they need? Since North Staffordshire is dependent upon declining industries like coal and pottery, and on a steel industry which is about to be taken away from it, will the Minister commission a special inquiry to see how the region can be assisted?

Mr. Chataway: I had the opportunity of discussing this matter with the hon. Gentleman and a delegation the other day. I know that he was delighted to note the enormous fall in unemployment in the area. It is now below the national average, I think that my recollection is right when I say that we have approved more IDCs in the past 15 months than in the previous four years.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: With regard to the supplementary question of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), can my right hon. Friend identify any single area, town or district in the whole of the United Kingdom which thinks that it is receiving the assistance to which it is entitled?

Mr. Chataway: I do not know that I have had as many representations from my hon. Friend's area as from other areas, but I realise that he, in common with a number of other hon. Members, may feel that, successful as the Government have been, there is still yet more to do.

Mr. Horam: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is no more searching test of a Government's commitment to regional policy than their attitude to IDC applications from the South-East and


Midlands during a period of economic boom? Is he aware that there is evidence that there has already been a dangerous relaxation in this area and that many of us who believe that regional policy will help not only employment but congestion problems in the Midlands and South-East will be watching very carefully?

Mr. Chataway: The hon. Gentleman referred to a dangerous relaxation. However, his colleagues from the London area, from whom I have been receiving representations this morning, take the opposite view, as does the Labour Party in control of the Greater London Council. I believe that we have the balance right. We are using IDCs to steer mobile projects to the regions but we are accepting modernisation projects and a number of major developments in the South-East and West Midlands which it would not be sensible to try to steer in this way.

Gas and Electricity Industries (Advertising)

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will give general directions to the gas and electricity boards that they should consult together to reduce the money spent by each on advertising to encourage the public to use their services, in view of the fact that each is a monopoly supplier in its own field.

Mr. Tom Boardman: No, Sir. This is a matter which is best left to the commercial judgment of the boards concerned.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong to have two public bodies spending public money inviting the public not to buy the product of the other in an area in which, between them, they have a monopoly? If he is not prepared to give a general direction, will he be prepared to invite the chairmen of the respective boards to have consultations with each other?

Mr. Boardman: The gas and electricity industries are not the only suppliers of domestic fuel. Coal and oil are also competing in this sphere. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend believes that a completely cosy relationship between the two industries would ultimately be in the interests of the consumer.

Mr. Palmer: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that these industries have no absolute monopoly but are in competition with every form of consumer spending? Does he also agree that they are expected to act commercially and to pay their way? If advertising is to be condemned for public enterprise, surely it should equally be condemned for private enterprise?

Mr. Boardman: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that competition with other industries must be fair. It is my responsibility to ensure that that competition is fair. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that there is a real rôle in this area for consumers and consultative councils. If they believe that matters have not been properly presented, or that there has been unfair and improper expenditure, they have a rôle which they will undoubtedly fulfil.

Energy Policy

Mr. Douglas: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on discussions between his Department and European Governments regarding a common energy policy.

The Secretary of State for Trade and industry (Mr. Peter Walker): The Government maintain close contact with our European partners on energy matters. both through EEC institutions and bilaterally. On 22nd May, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy reported to the House on 23rd May, the Council of Ministers considered a range of energy policy issues. My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry attended the meeting and certain specific items were agreed, and the Commission was invited to come forward with further proposals on other matters by the end of the year.—[Vol. 857, c. 473–90.]

Mr. Douglas: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how he can have meaningful discussions with the Community and other institutions on energy policy before presenting to the House an indication of the energy mix that we are likely to have in, say, 1980? Will he assure the House that we are unlikely to alter our licence agreements to meet any demands that the Commission might place upon us until we are sure that our offshore supply industry can get the same take from


these fields as other countries, such as France and, perhaps, Norway, have from their industries?

Mr. Walker: On the energy scene the Government have announced and made clear their decisions on a whole range of specific issues in the nuclear, oil and coal industries. The Government have repeatedly made clear that the oil finds are national assets and will be used to bring the maximum benefits to the United Kingdom's economy.

Mr. Skeet: Will my right hon. Friend work out a co-operative arrangement through the EEC or the OECD? If so many of these countries have similar interests, and we have the coal and energy that the European countries have not, are we to dilute our purpose to accommodate them?

Mr. Walker: There is a wide range of energy matters concerning both the Common Market and other countries in the Western world on which sensible collaboration and discussion of ideas is important. We have discussed these matters in both the OECD and the Community.

Mr. Eadie: I think that the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was questioned by me on this aspect of energy policy. Does he agree that statements being made in Europe, for example, that North Sea oil is European oil are causing concern in this country? Does he also agree that it is time that this House was informed about the Government's policy towards Europe and that, if there has to be a European energy policy, it should be informed, and we should indeed debate it?

Mr. Walker: The House will be kept constantly informed as talks take place. The oil and gas deposits on the Continental Shelf were not discussed at the Council meeting. The Government have repeatedly made it clear that these are national assets which will be used for the benefit of our economy.

Mr. Edward Taylor: There is no doubt about the ownership of the oil, but would it be helpful now, or in the near future, for the Government to make clear the extent to which they believe

Europe should participate in decisions on the use and development of North Sea oil?

Mr. Walker: I repeat that this is a national asset of the United Kingdom. Concerning co-operation on energy matters—not only oil, but nuclear energy, coal resources, and others—it is obviously vital for Europe as a whole and the British economy that we have an energy policy that ensures that the industries of Europe are kept moving.

Coal, Gas and Electricity (Prices)

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what discussions he has had with the managements of the nationalised coal, gas and electricity industries regarding the applications which those industries will submit to the Price Commission for price increases.

Mr. Tom Boardman: I have discussed with the Electricity Council the issues involved in an application by the industry to the Price Commission. The British Gas Corporation kept me fully informed of its intentions, but no issue arose requiring discussion. The National Coal Board also kept me fully informed of its intentions, but NCB prices for coal are not subject to the code. There is no question, therefore, of an application.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is a somewhat preoccupying reply? As the Price Commission, under the code, is already required to disregard the need of the nationalised industries to bring themselves back to a more comprehensible and sensible financial posture, surely it is most undesirable that there should be a prejudging by the Government of any price increase that they might obtain from the commission before they go to it. Is not the decision by the commission to reduce the increase that the Coal Board requires and requested in contradiction of our obligations under the Treaty of Paris?

Mr. Boardman: There has been no prejudging of the application that has been put in. The application by the Electricity Council on behalf of the industry is its application. Whether, under the code, the Government have


any right to make any decision on the outcome does not yet arise.
The decision not to put up the price of domestic coal was taken by the National Coal Board. It was not one where the Government had any right to direct. It was the board's decision, taking into account the overall counter-inflation policy and the economic needs of the country, not to put up prices.

Mr. Palmer: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government, by their constant interference in the pricing policies of the nationalised industries, have treated those industries very shabbily, with the result that they have lost track of commercial accountability?

Mr. Boardman: Intervention in the pricing structures of these industries goes back a long way. The overriding consideration is counter-inflation. It is essential that the Government take whatever action they properly can to ensure that their counter-inflation policy is successful.

Multinational Companies (Wage Levels)

Mr. Meacher: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what evidence he has about the payment of sub-poverty line wages outside South Africa by United Kingdom multinational companies.

Sir G. Howe: United Kingdom companies are not required to inform the Government of wages paid by them to employees outside the United Kingdom.

Mr. Meacher: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that Pfizer and Hoffmann-La Roche—both United Kingdom-based multinational companies—which sell some of their chemical products to the National Health Service at 40 times the foreign sale price, also pay their chemical workers in Turkey at one-ninth the rate of their American chemical workers, which is well below the poverty line? Is it moral for the British Government to trade with companies that so blatantly engage in labour exploitation?

Sir G. Howe: It is depressing, but it is a little difficult to have detailed knowledge of the rates of wages paid to Turkish employees of two international companies. The House is investigating

the position of United Kingdom companies in South Africa, and that is one distinct question on which informed opinion can focus. The question of pricing policy by Roche and other commercial companies is primarily looked at—and it seems a sensible starting point—from the point of view of whether the National Health Service, which is financed by taxpayers and operates for the benefit of this country, is getting the best bargain that it can in relation to the prices that it pays. Obviously, those concerned with that matter will bear in mind the points of a different nature that have been made by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Tebbit: My right hon. and learned Friend will know of and welcome, as I do, the expansion of our trade with East European and other Communist countries. Is he able to confirm that we are adequately informed on the question whether any of their companies or organisations with whom we trade employ men at wages which are at about the poverty-line level, or whether any of them are in prison camps working as slave labourers? Why do we not hear some more about that from hon. Gentlemen opposite?

Sir G. Howe: My hon. Friend raises a point of equal importance. There is express statutory provision, dating from the 1957 Act, in relation to foreign prison-made goods being imported into this country. The point made by my hon. Friend illustrates the limits of the jurisdiction of the Government and Parliament in this country, and the limits, which in the last resort it is for the House to decide, of the extent to which we can pursue inquiries of this kind in relation to international trade with countries that are far less willing to disclose information about conditions of employment in their countries than are those with which we deal more regularly, and about which it is much less difficult to make judgments. If we were to run up across the world barriers, of the kind that are logically pressed for by hon. Gentlemen opposite, we should find ourselves in a difficult international trading situation.

Mr. Benn: The answers given by the right hon. and learned Gentleman to this and earlier Questions underline the legitimate anxieties felt in this country and


many others about the power of multinational corporations. They can overcharge—and in the case of Roche they have overcharged—the British National Heath Service for drugs. They have power to invest abroad, employ people at low wages and then compete unfairly against British workers. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirmed earlier, he does not even have statutory power to enforce the provision of information by such companies. In the Green Paper on companies legislation, will the Government please give serious attention to the power of the multinationals that bring some benefits but also tend to erode national sovereignty and affect both workers and organisations in the countries where they operate?

Sir G. Howe: Anyone who tries to take an intelligent look at the world trading scene is aware of the position of multinational trading companies, but in looking at the situation one must take account of the extent to which they provide a wide range of investment, sometimes in this country and sometimes in the form of British multinational companies being able to invest abroad to increase the capacity of our country to export. The factors raised by the right hon. Gentleman ought not to be overlooked, but I think that they have to be set alongside other factors, including the power—often the impenetrable power—of State trading monopolies in countries where it is impossible to discover anything at all. These things must be kept in perspective.

Rolls-Royce Limited

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the inquiry into the collapse of Rolls-Royce Limited under Section 165 of the Companies Act 1948 has been completed; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Walker: The inspectors have now submitted their report and it is being considered.

Miss Fookes: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that many shareholders, including several of my constituents, are seriously concerned about this state of affairs and feel that their interests are the last to be considered?

Mr. Walker: That is why the Government decided to have a full detailed in-

vestigation into and a report on this company. I received the report only a few days ago, but it will be considered urgently.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in my constituency there are Rolls-Royce workers who for many years put their savings into shares in the company and are concerned about the present position? As things develop, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the representations that I and others have made?

Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: What is my right hon. Friend's policy about the publication of reports of investigations under this section? What, for instance, will be his policy about publishing the report on the V and G Insurance Company?

Mr. Walker: I cannot answer specific questions on that issue. As regards reports generally, it would normally be the practice of the Government to publish them. The only reason why that would normally not happen is if my Solicitor or the Director of Public Prosecutions considered that it would prejudice any criminal or civil proceedings which might arise on the report.

Lonrho Limited

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will ensure that the investigation into the Lonrho affair will be in public, or that the full report be published.

Sir G. Howe: The investigation by inspectors into the affairs of Lonrho Limited is being conducted under Section 165 of the Companies Act 1948 and takes place in private. As my right hon. Friend has indicated, the reports of such investigations are normally published unless there are substantial reasons for not doing so, such as the risk of prejudicing court proceedings.

Mr. Hamilton: Why cannot we have our Watergate if the Americans have theirs? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that this report will be published before the General Election, even though it may be designated an obscene publication? What will his reaction be if we say


that we shall scrub the Tory face of capitalism by nationalising Lonrho?

Sir G. Howe: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his epithets and to express his lust for sensationalism if he so desires. This report of the inquiry will be handled in a way appropriate to the circumstances, exactly as I have indicated. The inquiry will proceed and publication will be decided by the same standards as every Government have applied under Section 165 of the Act. That is as it should be, and as it will be.

Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the curious thing is that now that the whole subject has been aired again in the media there is an indication of stronger public disquiet about the Pergamon affair than about Lonrho?

Sir G. Howe: As the latest Pergamon report has not been published it would not be right for me to make any specific comment on that.

Mr. Grimond: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the procedure allows inquiries into the activities of Lonrho or subsidiaries outside this country, for instance, in South Africa?

Sir G. Howe: The position is that the investigation is primarily into the affairs of the Lonrho Company itself—the London-based holding company. The inspectors have power under Section 166 to inquire into the affairs of subsidiaries to the extent that they consider relevant and necessary for the purposes of investigation into the affairs of the holding company. If a subsidiary is based abroad, inspectors can pursue inquiries into that subsidiary, but the jurisdiction that they can exercise does not extend outside the territory of this country. Thus, in so far as they make inquiries abroad, it will not be possible to compel witnesses to attend or to command the production of books and papers. They can question those directors of a subsidiary who are directors of the London-based board about the affairs of both companies.

Mr. Benn: Is not the case of Lonrho totally different from some technical inquiries that have taken place in the past,

in that the Prime Minister denounced the company before the inquiry was set up? Is it not important that the public at large, including shareholders, should know what went on in Lonrho and why the Prime Minister denounced the company? In those circumstances, a long private inquiry with no certainty of publication at the end would totally fail to erase the anxiety that has been aroused by the Lonrho case and, as has quite properly been said by the right hon. Gentleman, could extend into many other companies.

Sir G. Howe: In considering the question of publication, when that question comes to be decided whoever is then responsible for that matter will consider the issues raised by the right hon. Gentleman and, manifestly, as the shape of the statute makes clear, there is a public interest in the publication of reports of this kind. Clearly, the factors mentioned by the Prime Minister demonstrate the nature of the public interest, but it would not be right, in advance of completion of the inquiry, to conclude that in all circumstances public interest should be allowed to override the other matters that I mentioned in my original reply to the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton).

Dry Cleaners and Laundries (VAT)

Miss Lestor: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many cases of alleged abuse of VAT charges have been received in connection with dry cleaners and laundries.

Sir G. Howe: My Department has received 95 complaints of incorrect price adjustments by dry cleaners, laundries and launderettes since the tax changes on 1st April. Detailed information about the pattern of complaints dealt with locally is not available.

Miss Lestor: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that my trading standards services department in Slough made a complaint against a firm of dry cleaners and launderers on 10th April, that no reply was received until the end of May, that the firm was instructed to amend its prices on 24th May, which it did, until 28th May, when it increased them on the ground that raw material prices had gone up? Is he aware that


there are great difficulties in communication between the VAT division and the Price Commission, and that this is resulting in general chaos in the whole operation, which is largely regarded as a farce by my consituents?

Sir G. Howe: I am not aware of the validity of the general observations that the hon. Lady has made. As she knows from the letter that I have written to her about this case, there was some difficulty in establishing contact between the inspector and the proprietor of the company in question, but the complaint was investigated by the weights and measures inspector. He communicated his ruling on the matter to the company, the company reduced its prices, but the Price Commission has now been asked to investigate whether the increases that the company has since made comply with the provisions of the Price and Pay Code. The important fact is that many price reductions have been made since the commencement of stage 1, including a large number since the coming into effect of VAT. It is wrong to suggest that this machinery is ineffective.

Mr. Alan Williams: But what action is the Department now taking to search out these VAT abuses? Will the Minister bear in mind that although the specialrôleof the Weights and Measures Inspectorate came to an end over six weeks ago there are still price increases by cleaners and laundries, and particularly by restaurants, beyond those that are legitimate under VAT? What processes of detailed VAT scrutiny now exist at High Street level?

Sir G. Howe: Of course, the initial peak of complaints of price increases due to VAT was noticed when VAT started. The number of complaints now attributable to VAT has shrunk to much smaller proportions. Since the commencement of stage 1, price reductions effected by the Prices Unit, the Weights and Measures Inspectorate and the Price Commission have amounted to more than 10,000. Those effected by the Price Commission through its eight regional information centres have amounted to 150,000, which have been done voluntarily. That shows the extent to which the Price Commission is effectively taking over the rôle initially discharged by the Weights and Measures Inspectorate.

Motor Engineering (Brent)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many new jobs and renewed use of empty factories his Department expects in the London borough of Brent in motor engineering.

Mr. Chataway: I am afraid that I cannot forecast what firms may eventually occupy empty factories in the London borough of Brent.

Mr. Pavitt: Will the right hon. Gentleman's Department examine in depth the consequences of British Leyland's massive development programme, which was announced recently, particularly in relation to the Park Royal Industrial Estate, which up to 10 years ago was more or less one of the centres of engineering for the motor industry? Although we still have Park Royal Vehicles making London buses, many skilled motor engineers are now working as window cleaners, and in jobs of that sort. In this development programme there is, therefore, a great need for this section of London not to be forgotten.

Mr. Chataway: In so far as this is a matter for me, I shall certainly take into account what the hon. Gentleman has said, but he will be glad to know that since the beginning of last year the IDCs which have been granted for all projects in Brent—it is estimated—should provide over 500 new jobs. There is a very low level of unemployment in the borough at present.

Regional Development

Mr. Edward Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the progress of his policies on regional development.

Mr. Chataway: My right hon. Friend will be publishing this summer a report on the discharge of his functions under the Industry Act in the financial year ending 31st March 1973. If, however, my hon. Friend has any particular point on which he would like prior information, I should be glad to supply it.

Mr. Taylor: Yes, indeed, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is it


true or untrue that our central and non-central areas will be designated on 1st July? In view of the relevance of this matter to the whole question of regional development and the many answers that we have had in the past saying that the intention was that the designation would be by 1st July, according to the present programmes, will my right hon. Friend say whether they will be designated by the Commission on 1st July? If not, when?

Mr. Chataway: It is the intention to finalise this matter before 1st July. I can confirm that that is the aim under Article 154 of the Treaty of Accession.

Mr. Dalyell: What did the CBI say to the Government about REP?

Mr. Chataway: In due course, one will be able to tell the House what the CBI and the TUC have said—

Mr. Dalyell: The Minister knows very well.

Mr. Chataway: The CBI has published its views and it is for the hon. Member to come to his own conclusions about whether it would have been likely to say the same thing to the Government. The Government's position is that they are now having discussions with the CBI and the TUC.

Mr. Crouch: May I warn my right hon. Friend that if the decision to build a seaport at Maplin proceeds he may have to face pressure from another direction on his regional policy to allow extensive industrial development there? Has he yet given thought to this problem?

Mr. Chataway: In the debates about Maplin, the Government have given close consideration to the regional implications.

Mr. Benn: Now that the Minister has confirmed that the decision on central areas will be made on 1st July, will he say whether the final decision about the application of the Common Market regional policy will be taken by this House, or will it be taken by the Community and enforced on us whatever view we may take of that policy?

Mr. Chataway: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, under Article 154 of the Treaty of Accession there is an obli-

gation to supplement the existing rules of the Community to take the British situation into account. We have made it clear that this will not involve any reduction in the level and coverage of the regional aids that we introduced last year, and I believe that that is the point that concerns the House.

Central Electricity Generating Board

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last had official discussions with the Central Electricity Generating Board.

Mr. Peter Walker: I last met the Chairman of the CEGB on 5th April. My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry meets him frequently.

Mr. Hunt: When my right hon. and hon. Friends next meet the board, will they ask its southern region to desist from its present anti-social policy of sending the coal for its Croydon power station by road through my constituency—at the rate of up to 250 loads a week—rather than by rail, which would cause a minimum of noise and nuisance, and which is where, on environmental grounds, it rightly belongs?

Mr. Walker: The reason for the new methods of transport is the change of supplies from one set of coalfields to another, but I understand that talks have taken place and that assurances have been given about the use of a new route, on a trial basis.

Directors' Expenses (Legislation)

Mr. McCrindle: asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether, in his forthcoming legislation on the reform of company law, he will consider taking powers to publish a code of practice in relation to directors' expenses and perquisites.

Mr. Peter Walker: I am considering questions of directors' responsibilities in my review of company law.

Mr. McCrindle: Is it not worth recording the fact that the great majority of British companies act with restraint and responsibility on the matters to which


this Question refers? Would not the publication of a code of conduct be helpful, so as to reduce the offences of the remaining few to a very small percentage?

Mr. Walker: Talks are now taking place with the CBI and others on this, but it is important to get the law right on disclosure. Under the present law, the 1948 Act requires disclosure of the aggregate of all directors' emoluments, while the 1967 Act requires disclosure of emoluments of chairmen or any highly-paid directors, though not on such a wide scale as the 1948 Act. These are matters that we shall bring into our White Paper on company law to see that full disclosure takes place.

Mr. Paget: If we are to have a capitalist system, are not these sorts of provision rather out of place? Are not Lonrho and Pergamon remarkable success stories in the system? Are not the methods of thrustful, aggressive and, above all, successful practice disclosed by their books—as, indeed, by Watergate—illustrative of the success of the system?

Mr. Walker: It has been a great relief to many of us to see the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has tried to restrain some of his hon. Friends from stopping the system.

Sir F. Bennett: When the Minister is undertaking this review, will he consider including the activities of consultants? After all, very often directors are and can be publicly known, and some of the things about which people have been complaining extend to consultants.

Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir.

Dr. Gilbert: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that even more important than the question of directors' perks is the question of the conflict of interest that arises where directors sit on so many boards, particularly those of financial institutions? Will he give his attention to that matter?

Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS

Mr. Biggs-Davison: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is necessary for the scrutiny of the executive and conduct of proper debate that this House should be provided with the OFFICIAL REPORT in due time. It is now a week, I think, Mr. Speaker, that we have been without HANSARD. I would respectfully inquire what action is being taken to ensure that the OFFICIAL REPORT is placed in the hands of hon. Members. This situation seems to me to be tantamount to a contempt of this House and an action tending to frustrate the parliamentary process.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has raised a matter which concerns a great inconvenience to all hon. Members and. indeed, to myself.
I have been considering the situation anxiously. I think that all that I had better say at present is that I will convey to those responsible the point which has been raised, and perhaps something may be said about it tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

3.31 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I must trouble the House with a short statement. The House will know that there have been certain printing difficulties, to which reference has just been made. As a result, the amendment paper available in the Vote Office is in photographed form. The earlier printed amendment papers are not complete. The photographed amendment sheet is complete but it shows certain amendments as being starred—that is, as if notice of them had been given by last Friday—whereas in fact notice of the overwhelming majority of those amendments so marked was given earlier. These amendments are not, of course, being treated as starred for the purpose of selection. The only genuine starred amendments are to be found on inter-leaved pages 1024A and 1030A, where the amendments appear in their proper place in the Bill.
There are also a few mis-prints, most of which are easily recognisable, though there are two mis-prints to which I shall draw the attention of the House when we come to the amendment concerned.

Mr. William Ross: On a point or order, Mr. Speaker. One of the other disadvantages of the position that we are in is that we do not have bound copies of the Committee Proceedings, which are generally the corrected proceedings, taking account of some of the errors of printers and of mis-reporting.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, in the photographed copies we do not have the name of one hon. Member followed by four or five supporters on an amendment. Very often the person who moves an amendment is not at the top of the list of names.
I trust that you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot have the position where those who are second or third in the list who were intending to move amendments would be ruled out of order because of some process whereby their

names had to be on the Order Paper. We are working under considerable difficulties indeed.

Mr. Speaker: I am aware of the point which the right hon. Gentleman has made. All that I can say is that I think that those who advise me have worked very hard indeed to see that the House does have something. We shall certainly have regard to what the right hon. Gentleman has said about names.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. An amendment to which you referred, Mr. Speaker, at page 1024A is numbered Amendment No. 378 in my name. I am sure that it is one of the amendments that you, Mr. Speaker, would have selected, but, unfortunately, on the provisional list selected by you Amendment No. 378 refers to an amendment on page 1039 dealing with salaries. I am assuming that Amendment No. 378, which is a starred amendment in my name, is being called, but I cannot find it anywhere in the provisional selection.

Mr. Speaker: That is an ingenious way of querying the Chair's selection. That amendment was not selected.

Mr. David Steel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. One of the consequences of the printing difficulties is that we have not been able to see the marshalled list of amendments until very recently. I take it that you, Mr. Speaker, or your successors in the Chair, will be sympathetic in regard to representations about the selection which hon. Members were unable to make privately.

Mr. Speaker: This is a provisional selection.

Ordered,
That in Consideration of the Local Government (Scotland) Bill any Amendment relating to the Clauses and Schedules be considered in the following order of Clauses and Schedules, namely, Clause 1; Schedule I; Clauses 2 to 11; Schedules 2 and 3; Clause 12; Schedule 4; Clauses 13 to 20; Schedule 5; Clauses 21 to 28; Schedule 6; Clauses 29 to 43; Schedule 7; Clauses 44 to 97; Schedule 8; Clauses 98 to 121; Schedule 9; Clauses 122 to 127; Schedules 10 and 11; Clauses 128 to 130; Schedules 12 and 13; Clause 131; Schedule 14; Clause 132; Schedule 15; Clause 133; Schedule 16; Clauses 134 to 145; Schedule 17; Clauses 146 and 147: Schedule 18; Clauses 148 to 151;


Schedule 19; Clauses 152 to 159; Schedule 20; Clauses 160 and 161; Schedule 21; Clauses 162 to 170; Schedule 22; Clauses 171 to 182; Schedule 23; Clauses 183 to 186; Schedule 24; Clauses 187 to 210; Schedule 25; Clauses 211 to 223; Schedule 26; Clauses 224 to 231; Schedule 27; Clause 232.—[Mr. Gordon Campbell.]

New Clause 1

RATES OF INTEREST IN RELATION TO CERTAIN SUMS DUE TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES

(1) The rate of interest fixed by subsection (2) below shall be substituted for the rate or, as the case may be, the maximum rate of interest determined by or under the following enactments (which relate among other things to the interest payable to local authorities on certain sums due to them), that is to say:
section 10(2) of the Coast Protection Act 1949;
sections 29(5) and 31(4) of the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968;
section 23(5) of the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969;
section 25(3) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1969.

(2) The said rate shall be one-quarter per cent. above the relevant rate determined by the Treasury in relation to loans made for a period of fifteen years under section 3 of the National Loans Act 1968 (local loans by the Loan Commissioners); and in this subsection the "relevant rate" means the rate applying on whichever of the following dates, namely 16th May or 16th November or such other date as may be prescribed by regulations under section 111 of this Act, most closely precedes the date from which interest first becomes payable in relation to the sum in question, or, where more than one rate has been so determined, such one of those rates as the Treasury may from time to time direct either generally or with respect to any particular enactment.

(3) As soon as may be after giving a direction under subsection (2) above the Treasury shall cause it to be published in the Edinburgh Gazette.—[Mr. Younger.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office (Mr. George Younger): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The clause secures that certain rates of interest chargeable by local authorities which the Secretary of State is empowered to determine are put into a fixed relationship with the 15-year Public Works Loan Board rates. The clause follows the lines of similar provision made in Section 171 of the Local Government Act 1972.
Under the statutes listed in subsection (1) of the clause the Secretary of State has power to prescribe the rates of interest, or the maximum rates of interest, charged by local authorities on sums due to them for various purposes. In each case the power is exercised by statutory instrument. But over recent years rates of interest have been subject to frequent change and, to keep pace, a steady and sometimes rapid flow of new orders would have been required. The new clause will simplify administrative procedures for those concerned in local government and in central Government by providing that the relevant rates of interest, or maximum rates of interest, are in effect determined by the fixed relationship with the Treasury Loans Commissioners' Public Works Loans Board interest rates.
I hope that this will be generally welcomed as bringing simplicity in local government.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 2

ORDNANCE SURVEY

(1) The Ordnance Survey Act 1841 (in this section referred to as "the 1841 Act") shall have effect subject to the modifications set out in this section.

(2) An application under section 1 as read with section 17 of the 1841 Act shall be made to the proper officer of the regional, islands or district council, and where such an application is made, the function of appointing a person to assist in examining, ascertaining and marking out reputed boundaries shall be exercisable by the council to whose proper officer the application was made.

(3) The newspapers in which copies of an application under section 1 as read with section 17 of the 1841 Act are to be inserted shall be those circulating in the area of the council to whose proper officer the application was made.

(4)(a) References, in whatever terms in the 1841 Act, to the sheriff by whom a person is appointed under section 1 as read with section 17 of that Act shall be construed as references to the regional, islands or district council, as the case may be.
(b) References in the 1841 Act to the sheriff clerk or sheriff clerk depute shall be construed as references to the proper officer of the regional, islands or district council, as the case may be.

(5) References in the 1841 Act to a county shall be construed as references to a region, islands area or district, as the case may be,


including the electoral areas thereof and other places therein.—[Mr. Buchanan-Smith.]

Brought up and read the First time.

The Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Agriculture, Scottish Office (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The clause quite simply modifies, in the light of the new local government structure, the Ordnance Survey Act 1941 on which Ordnance Survey relies to carry out its activities.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3

REMOVAL OR RELAXATION OF CONTROLS AFFECTING CERTAIN LOCAL AUTHORITY FUNCTIONS

(1) For the purpose of removing or relaxing controls which affect the exercise by local authorities of certain functions, including limits imposed on the amount of the fees which may be charged by local authorities in connection with the issue of licences and the exercise of other functions, the enactments specified in Schedule (relaxation of controls) to this Act shall have effect subject to the amendments set out in that Schedule.

(2) Without prejudice to subsection (I) above, the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument make provision for the removal or relaxation of any control, including any such limit as is referred to in subsection (1) above, which affects the exercise of any function by a local authority and which is conferred by or under any enactment on a Minister of the Crown or a body constituted by or under any enactment.

(3) An order made under this section may contain such incidental or consequential provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate, including provisions amending or repealing or revoking, with or without savings, any enactment passed before this Act and any instrument made under any such enactment.

(4) A statutory instrument containing an order under this section shall be of no effect unless approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.—[Mr. Gordon Campbell.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gordon Campbell): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Speaker: It is suggested that the following Government amendments be discussed at the same time: Nos. 186–

200, 203–206, 210, 214, 218, 221, 223–225, 227, 228 and 229.

Mr. Campbell: The new clause with the new schedule contained in Amendment No. 229 sets out some specific controls in existing enactments which we propose to relax in the Bill. It also gives the Secretary of State a general power by affirmative resolution order in the future to remove or relax similar controls in any existing statute.
This is carrying out a policy, which we have already announced, of relaxing central controls over local authorities where we think this can now be done unless there is still a valid reason for a central control.
The other amendments are consequential, but the new schedule in Amendment No. 229 contains some repeals which result from a survey, which has been carried out by the departments of the Scottish Office, of existing controls exercised by central Government. This is a list of those which we think should now be relaxed. Other controls are already being relaxed in other parts of the Bill. Some of the provisions in the schedule which are to be repealed are clearly obsolete, so their removal represents simply bringing the situation up to date.
In the case of others the Government are taking a deliberate decision to do without controls which we believe are no longer necessary and can be dispensed with. The purpose of the exercise is to give the new local authorities discretion and to remove central controls unless they are clearly needed.
Subsections (2) to (4) of the clause set out the arrangements whereby this can be done in the future and under which the Secretary of State can propose to Parliament that further controls should be relaxed following later reviews by the Government of the day. We believe that this is a useful provision enabling this to be done by Parliament without the necessity for another Bill.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Paragraph 40 of the new schedule proposes the following change to the Transport Act 1968 relating to the powers of passenger transport executives:
In section 12(4) (borrowing powers of Executive), the words 'with the consent of the Minister' shall cease to have effect.


Will my right hon. Friend give the House some idea of the implications of this? If it is to take away the Government's right fully to supervise the executives' borrowing powers it seems that we are taking a rather greater step than would appear to be the case in the great majority of the proposed changes, which are of little consequence. I apologise to my right hon. Friend for not having given him notice of the question.

Mr. Ross: The desire of the Government to remove or to relax controls is something that we all welcome. We noted in Committee that where fees continue to be charged and where the Government get interest on them there are proposals to increase them. Equally affected may be some of the powers apart from the fees referred to in one of the schedules. I am fascinated by the fact that it is still desired to charge a fee for the lending of billiard halls. Surely the time has come to get rid of some of these things. I hope that if the clause is not strong enough to enable the Secretary of State to wipe out not just the question of fees but also the question of licensing of some things, he will continue to examine the matter.
The only matter that causes us some concern is the nature of subsection (3)—
an order made under this section may contain such incidental or consequential provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be appropriate"—
in other word, he can do what he likes—
including provisions amending or repealing or revoking…any enactment passed before this Act and any instrument made under any such enactment.
The Secretary of State will need to put in some qualifying words as to the scope and extent of the power he is taking to repeal or revoke any enactment. He surely does not mean "any enactment". This provision is not to be used by the Secretary of State to roam through statutes to get rid of anything he does not like or to make repeals, revocations or amendments. However, we approve of the saving in subsection (4) requiring that statutory instruments containing orders must be approved by each House of Parliament.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: We have tried to make subsection (3) as wide as possible simply so as not to restrict a future

Secretary of State or House of Commons as to dispensing with any control which may then appear to be obsolete. The saving, as the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) pointed out, is that subsection (4) stipulates that this can be done only by affirmative resolution. This means that a positive decision must be taken.
The right hon. Gentleman drew attention, as I am sure other hon. Members could do if they looked through all the controls that there have been over local authorities, to the question of a control concerning billiard halls. No doubt a future review will show that more controls can be dispensed with. Although that one is not being dealt with on this occasion, there will be occasions in the future, made possible by the clause, when a Government and Parliament can relax controls over the new local authorities and give them discretion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) raised the question of the relaxation involving the Transport Act 1968, which is a fairly recent enactment, as my hon. Friend knows, because both he and I served on the Standing Committee which considered that Bill.
With the assumption of passenger transport responsibility by regional authorities, the Government do not consider that control over borrowing is appropriate. We therefore believe that it can now be relaxed. In the review which has been carried out we have not only gone over some of the ancient statutes and brought forward obsolete provisions for relaxation we have also looked at statutes as recently as the Transport Act 1968 to see what could be dispensed with.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 5

ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCE AND FINANCIAL LOSS ALLOWANCE

(1) Any elected member of a regional council shall be entitled to receive a salary of £2,000 a year paid monthly for as long as he or she is a member of the regional council.

(2) Any elected member of a district council shall be entitled to receive a salary of £1,000 a year paid monthly for as long as he or she is a member of the district council.

(3) Regional and district councils may decide to augment these salaries up to but not exceeding 100 per cent. of their value for councillors who are chairmen of committees or who have special executive functions.

(4) These salaries shall be reviewed every four years and increased by the same percentage as the cost of living has risen during the period since the last review.—[Mr. Mackintosh.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): With the new clause we are to consider the following amendments:

No. 70, in page 23, line 25, leave out Clause 45.

No. 249, in Clause 45, page 23, line 25, after Members 'insert:
'of regional councils shall be paid a salary. Members of other councils'.

No. 377, in page 23, line 25, after authority insert:
not being a member of a regional authority'.

No. 378, in page 24, line 5, at end insert:
(5) Any elected member of a regional council shall be entitled to be paid a salary of an amount to be prescribed from time to time for each regional council by the Secretary of State.
(6) The provisions of subsection (5) above are without prejudice to any other financial claim which might be made by an elected member of a regional council.

Mr. William Baxter: On a point of order Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are you passing by New Clause 4 without any comment?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes. Mr. Speaker has not selected that new clause, so there is nothing I can do.

Mr. Baxter: I emphatically protest against this terrible procedure. This is the negation of democracy. This is a very important and topical question. It has a great bearing upon the well being—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I interrupt the hon. Member again? Of course I understand the point he is making very well and of course this is a situation in which the House often finds itself, but were it not for the rule of the House which gives the selection of amendments into the hands of Mr.

Speaker, no Government on either side would ever make much progress. The House has also laid it down that the Chair in deciding not to select an amendment does not give reasons for non-selection.
There are ways and means by which hon. Members can find out for themselves why these things happen, but there is nothing the Chair can do. Of course if an amendment is out of order, that is a different matter. In such an event the Chair can and generally does give some reason. No explanation is given for non-selection.

Mr. Baxter: May I continue with my point of order? I—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot take a point of order on the question of selection and I must ask the hon. Member not to try to insist that I take it because there is nothing that can be done here and there is no question of my being able to explain why the Chair should or should not select any amendment. I should like to think that we shall have no unpleasantness or anything of that kind. I am bound by the rules of the House and I must see them adhered to. In continuing the hon. Member will only be wasting the time of the House.

Mr. Baxter: I regret wasting the time of the House but this is a provisional selection of amendments and as I understand it the House is surely its own master. There should be no need for it to be told by some person or persons unknown what it shall or shall not do. I submit that in his provisional selection of amendments Mr. Speaker has made a grave error of judgment in that this—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is impossible for the Chair to accept such a submission. The hon. Member's remedy is of course to put down a motion, but the Chair cannot accept any criticism of anything that the Chair does in that sense.

Mr. Baxter: Be that as it may. Whether the Chair accepts or rejects criticism is a matter for the Chair. I submit that the clause that I wish to have discussed was put down on the Order Paper when the Bill was in Committee. Many other


amendments which have now been selected were not selected for discussion in Committee and did not have the opportunity of being scrutinised by members of that Committee. I understand from some of the members of the Committee that they did not move this and other suggested new clauses or amendments which I put forward because they thought that it would be better for matters of such importance to be debated on the Floor of the House. I should like to know on what authority and why my new clause has not been selected.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The best thing for the hon. Member to do is to await the return of Mr. Speaker. As Mr. Speaker makes the selection and as it is not carried out by myself or my deputies it would be better for Mr. Speaker to deal with the matter. My task is to administer the rules of the House as they are at any particular moment.

Mr. Baxter: Further to my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have the greatest respect for you as Deputy Speaker, but if you are unable to make a ruling on this the best thing for you to do is to call for Mr. Speaker to come back to the Chair. He is the servant of the House, not the ruler of it, and if he has a reason to give to this House why the new clause has not been selected, I respectfully suggest that he be brought back here to give it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am seized of the hon. Member's point and I understand it. I hope that not for a moment will he think that I do not understand his feelings in the matter. But Mr. Speaker's hands are tied on this also. He is unable to give a reason for non-selection of amendments because he is expressly precluded from so doing by the rules of the House whose servant, indeed, he is and whose servant I am. We must enforce the rules which the House in its wisdom provides for us to enforce.

Mr. Baxter: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You have stated that neither Mr. Speaker nor yourself can say why the new clause has not been selected. May I therefore give you reasons why it should be selected?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am afraid not, because to do so would be to get around

the rules which the House has made for itself, namely that the whole question of selection shall be in the hands of Mr. Speaker. I repeat that if hon. Members or the House feel that Mr. Speaker is not carrying out the duties laid upon him the remedy is clear.

Mr. Baxter: It is, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall carry out that remedy, I can assure you. I shall put down a motion on the Order Paper about the confidence I have in Mr. Speaker for what he has done on this occasion. It is my submission that this is probably one of the most important new clauses that could be added to the Bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I gathered that that was the hon. Member's opinion, but I am not prepared to accept from him now why he holds it. He has stated his opinion and from my point of view that is sufficient. That is all I can accept in my position as Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member will be outside the rules of the House in going on and he will be in disobedience of the Chair if he does not now leave the matter.

Mr. Baxter: I am afraid, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I must ask you to call Mr. Speaker. I want an explanation from the servant of the House that you have indicated him to be. I want him here to explain why the clause has not been selected. So far no one has indicated to me in any way whatsoever that there was anything fundamentally wrong with the clause. No one has had the courtesy to nod or whisper from the Chair and none of the officials of the House has told me. This is fantastic and the height of bad manners, if nothing else.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand all that, but I should like to remind the hon. Member that Mr. Speaker is at the moment in the chair in the Conference on Electoral Law which is an important matter and which will come to an end if he has to leave the chair. Quite apart from that, it is not customary in these circumstances for Mr. Speaker to be recalled. All that has to be done is for whoever happens to be in charge at the time to state the rules and regulations of the House. Almost without exception, hon. Members—perhaps sometimes reluctantly—accept what the Chair says


because they know that the Chair is acting in the interests of all. I should now like respectfully to ask the hon. Member to await the return of Mr. Speaker so that he may raise his protest with Mr. Speaker, or to take the action which is open to all hon. Members. I ask him now to desist from raising further points of order on this because I am not prepared to take them. Mr. Mackintosh.

Mr. Mackintosh: I have moved—

Mr. Baxter: On a point of order. I submit that you are misleading the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you state that Mr. Speaker is at this moment in a committee in the House. That committee is to start its deliberations at 4.30 this afternoon, if I am informed correctly, and there is no reason why Mr. Speaker should not be asked to come along here and explain why the new clause is not being called.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Speaker has to prepare his work before that meeting, and, as I told the hon. Member, I need not even have conceded that point. It is not customary for the Chair to recall Mr. Speaker or anyone else to explain these matters. The House must accept the law as it is at any particular moment.

Mr. Baxter: I will not accept—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want to have to take any unpleasant action, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want me to do so. We are much too good friends for that. But I now ask him to accept what I say and not to provoke further trouble. Mr. Mackintosh—

4.0 p.m.

Mr. David Steel: On a point of order. Arising from these exchanges, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I submit one point to you? Before you took the Chair raised with Mr. Speaker on a point of order the fact that we had only recently had the assembled list of amendments. It is normal practice for hon. Members to make private representations to the Chair on the provisional selection, and we have not been able to do that because of the difficulties that we all know about. I put to Mr. Speaker the point, which I thought he accepted fairly, that

because of the difficulties the Chair might be lenient in accepting late submissions about the provisional selection. Is it your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that only Mr. Speaker himself can deal with changes in the selection? If that is so, the House will clearly be in difficulty not just in the present case but possibly on later amendments.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What the hon. Gentleman said is correct. Under the recent changes in Standing Orders, almost the only power which has been kept from the Deputy Speaker is the power of selection of amendments on Report. Therefore, only Mr. Speaker can make that selection.

Mr. Mackintosh—

Mr. Dick Douglas: Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). I do not wish to detain the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it might be appropriate if hon. Members on both sides received clarification about the type of representation that might be made, in view of the difficulties. Although Mr. Speaker might be the only person who can rule or comment on the selection of amendments, he might not be the only person who can receive representations.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is right, and that is a perfectly reasonable submission. Hon. Members are often disappointed by the selection, and go either to Mr. Speaker or to the Table to give reasons why what is, after all, a provisional selection should be changed. The difference in the present case is that the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Baxter) is seeking to do on the Floor of the House something that the Standing Orders expressly preclude him from doing. That is why I must ask him not to persist. Otherwise, I shall be thrown on to the only sanction that I have in order to get on with the business of the House, which is to ask him to leave the House.

Mr. John Smith: On a point of order. I am deeply aggrieved about the non-selection of an amendment affecting my constituency. It seems to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you are saying that if I am lucky enough


to make my protest when Mr. Speaker is in the Chair I can be heard, but that if by chance my amendment comes up when you or another of Mr. Speaker's deputies is in the Chair I cannot protest. That seems most unfair. There should be a way of resolving the matter, so that we all have an equal opportunity to argue about non-selection.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Generally, it is easy, because things do not come up immediately. The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire is unfortunate in that his new clause has come right at the beginning, so that, with the difficulties over printing and so on, he perhaps did not have enough time to see what was happening. It is unfortunate, but I still have to obey the rules of the House.

Mr. John Smith: May we have clarification of the matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker? If the amendments about which I am aggrieved, Amendments Nos. 329 and 330, come up while you are in the Chair, have I to stay silent, although I am able to protest if Mr. Speaker is in the Chair?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not correct. The hon. Gentleman can make representations to the Table, and Mr. Speaker can be asked to make a decision. The Conference on Electoral Law can even be interrupted for a few moments while he does. Therefore, there is a way of overcoming the difficulty of which the hon. Gentleman speaks. What I cannot do is to go on hearing about the matter now from the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire, whom I must ask, in the interests of the House as a whole, to allow me to call the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh).

Mr. Baxter: I am very sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I must, on a point of order, ask you to carry out my request that Mr. Speaker be recalled to the Chair. This is a matter of paramount importance. I should not have come down here today, because I profoundly disagree with the contents of the Bill, if I had known that my new clause was not to be selected. Nobody informed me. There is nothing here to indicate that that was to be so.
I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to call Mr. Speaker to the Chair for the

purpose of giving us a reasoned explanation of this method of procedure. He is no greater personality than the least of us in the House. He is appointed to the Chair by the will of the House. He is the servant of the House. He is not the master of the House. He is entitled to come here and make a clear statement why the amendment has not been called.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am not prepared to do that. I am going by the precedent of all occupants of the Chair. We do not send for Mr. Speaker in these instances. If the hon. Gentleman will not accept that, I must ask him to leave his place.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: The House is in some difficulty about your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because, if I may say so with respect, it has not been delivered with your usual pellucid clarity. The problem is that if an amendment has not been selected by Mr. Speaker, and Mr. Speaker is not in the Chair when we might have expected the amendment to be called, it seems that it is not open to the hon. Members concerned to make representations about it. It clearly cannot have been the import and intention of your guidance that the question whether representations can be made about amendments or new clauses should be determined by whether the amendments happen to have been called at the beginning of our proceedings this afternoon. This is an important point which may affect other hon. Members as well.
Does it follow from your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Baxter) may not make representations in the Chamber, that we are now to move to new Clause 5, and that his opportunity to make representations to Mr. Speaker is lost finally, or is it open to Mr. Speaker to hear those representations and to permit the new clause to be called later?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentlemon's deduction is correct. The clause is lost, because it is too late to bring it back in its present form, though, in view of the ingenuity of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire, I should not say that it is beyond him to devise something else which may achieve his object, and


which he may then endeavour to persuade Mr. Speaker to accept.
In all fairness, I must say that the problem is not quite as instantaneous as hon. Members perhaps think. The selections have been posted in the Lobby since about one o'clock, and therefore hon. Members have had a chance to see what was happening.
I am sorry about the situation. Perhaps the House, through the Procedure Committee, will consider whether something should be done in the future, but the present situation is as I have stated it.
Now we must get on, and I must ask the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire to let the matter drop for the moment.

Mr. Baxter: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I very much regret your last words suggesting that I should see Mr. Speaker. I shall not go and see Mr. Speaker under any circumstances to discuss the clause, nor shall I find devious ways to get round the problem and to reintroduce the clause. That is not my manner of approach.
I asked the Vote Office for a list of the amendments and all the papers appertaining to today's debate. There was no indication in them that New Clause 4 was to be deleted. Therefore, I entered the Chamber with the impression that the new clause would be called. It appears on the Order Paper.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman had looked in the Lobby at the selection—I am sure that he will agree that that is the normal thing which hon. Members do—he would have seen that the new clause was not selected. If he had taken the trouble—I do not mean in an offensive way the statement that he should have taken the trouble to do so—and had looked at the selection he would have seen for himself. Having explained the situation to the hon. Gentleman I hope that he will allow us to proceed. I want to be definite about this. If the hon. Gentleman goes on any further with matter I must ask him to leave this place for the remainder of today's sitting. That I should very much dislike having to do. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not drive me to that.

Mr. Baxter: I am bound to proceed to the logical conclusion. With respect,

I am not accepting this from any other hon. Member, be he a Deputy Speaker or Mr. Speaker. I resigned from the Speakers' Panel on a question of principle. I do not mind being put out of this House on the question of principle. The new clause which has been presented to the House was not debated in Committee and it is right that it should be debated now.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must now ask the hon. Gentleman formally to leave his place for the rest of today's sitting. If he does not do so he knows the remedy which I shall immediately take. Will the hon. Gentleman be so good as to leave his place for the rest of today's sitting?

Mr. Baxter: I shall leave with a feeling of disgust and dissatisfaction about the method of procedure which has been adopted by Parliament in the name of democracy. It is a disgrace to the very word "democracy".

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. No more. I can hear no more.

The hon. Member, having conducted himself in a grossly disorderly manner, was ordered by Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Disorderly conduct), to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of this day's Sitting, and he withdrew accordingly.

Mr. Mackintosh: We have a great deal of business before us and I do not wish to take very long as there was a short debate in Committee about salaries for members of the new regional and district councils. In that debate the Under-Secretary of State was good enough to say that he would consider the matter. He said that he would look at the suggestion made by his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) about payment partly by salary and partly by allowance. He said that he would make an announcement.
That concession having been given, there followed a Division on whether a salary should be included. That led to 12 votes for and 12 votes against. The clause was defeated by the Chairman's casting vote.
It is appropriate that we should reconsider the matter. Those of us who believe in proper payment for regional and district councils should insist that there should not be discretionary payment at a later stage


but that provisions for proper payment should be inserted in the Bill. The point is well put in the Wheatley Report, which pointed out that under the old theory people were being compensated for taking time off from their work for doing important duties on behalf of the community.
4.15 p.m.
We are now suggesting that in Scotland there should be a small number of powerful regional councils with tremendous powers of expenditure. The Western Regional Council will be greater than the Glasgow Council. We are proposing that there should be a local authority which will have an annual revenue greater than many members of the United Nations. We are proposing that it should have a great deal of power and a great deal to do. We must consider seriously the kind of people we shall have as councillors and the kind of remuneration which we wish them to receive.
It was well put by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) when he said, as the Wheatley Report said, that we should change our attitude from compensation for time or money lost to remuneration for work done on behalf of the public. The Wheatley Report said:
In other words, it is quite proper to think in terms of remuneration in the context of local government service.
The report said that to keep on using the argument that what we want is to put in claims and to get allowances and travelling expenses is, in effect, a way of keeping people out of local government and not of bringing them in.
The report continued:
There is a job to be done, and the labourer is worthy of his hire.
Therefore, Wheatley recommended a salary. The only thing which Wheatley did not do was to specify the rate of the salary. It discussed what the rate should be and pointed out that the rate will depend in part of whether we keep the committee system, and make it obligatory that councillors should make a tremendous number of attendances, or whether we move to the ministerial system of local government.
If that move were made a salary would certainly be necessary for the chairman in each service—for example, education, housing and rates. A salary might not be

necessary at the same rate but it would still be necessary for general councillors operating in local government. The Wheatley Report's conclusion was that it would not recommend the rate of salary. The report said:
Clearly it should be a substantial figure.
The commission also pointed out that there should be a salary for district councillors. It said that such salaries should not necessarily be as great as for those for regional councillors. The commission at paragraph 929, said:
Councillors holding special responsibility should clearly get special treatment.
That is why I put in the clause that regional councils may increase the allowance up to 100 per cent. for councillors with ministerial, executive or chairmanship duties which will require virtually full-time attendance at the regional or district councils.
Wheatley concluded:
We believe that to pay a salary is the simplest, least invidious and generally most satisfactory way of dealing with a real problem. It removes any tendency which may exist at present to stretch out meetings…
I do not want to discuss whether that happens. The fact is that we are now asking men and women to do a very important job on behalf of the public. We must not think of them as doing that job during time off from other duties. We must consider it to be a job which requires a tremendous amount of full-time attention.
I ask hon. Members to think of other countries which have adopted salaries for local government work. That system has not produced a group of hacks or people who are interested in only remuneration. It has, in fact, produced people who have rapidly become national figures and who have moved from local government to the national scene. Some have led their countries. If we think of Germany today, we must think of Willy Brandt, who was burgomaster of Berlin. Adenauer began as burgomaster of Cologne, and Helmut Schmidt was prominent in Hamburg. Kiesinger was a leader in local affairs. The same situation applies to men who have been operating at the kind of local government level which we are now instituting. One regional council in Scotland will look after the wellbeing of two and a half million people. That requires full-time attention and at least


the knowledge and ability in application which is required in this House.
Therefore, a salary seems to be appropriate. The Under-Secretary of State, who has now left the Chamber, who was dealing with the matter in Committee, said that none of us wants full-time councillors. I should be alarmed to think that in our larger regions we might have men handling, for example, education matters who were not full time. We should treat the question seriously. If councillors are not full time, who will be full time? In that event the full-time person will be the official. We do not want the new regions run by the officials. That is what will happen if we do not have able men who are prepared to give five or 10 years of their working life and to turn, if necessary, to full-time council work. That is why I suggest that regional councillors should have a salary which is enough for people to live on. Such a salary would not reduce the incentive for them, if they felt able to do so, to continue, as do many hon. Members, with some part-time work or other paid activity.
If we want the best people to serve in local government, we must pay a salary and not merely a compensation for time off. I believe that three things would most likely produce a successful new system of local government—although my hope is now fading for such a system. The first is the cutting out of the committee system and going more for a direct ministerial system of responsibility. The second is to get away from the guiding strings exercised by St. Andrew's House and into a situation which, as Wheatley recommended, cuts a large number of leading controls on local authorities. The third is to get the kind of people in local government that we want and hope for, and for that they must have adequate remuneration.
This is why I suggest £2,000 a year for members of regional councils and £1,000 for members of district councils, with up to double if a person becomes a chairman or a minister or takes on responsibility of this kind at the behest of the council. Of course, it will depend very much on the type and size of the regions, varying as they do from

100,000 to two and a half million people, in deciding what is appropriate. Again, as Wheatley pointed out, the cost of living and other factors could change.
The question we have to ask ourselves now is whether Scottish local government is to have a life and vigour and force of its own. Are we prepared to give to people who are ready to give up a period of their lives in order to look after the community's interests a salary adequate to the circumstances? I believe that we should be so prepared. As the Wheatley Report said, the labourer is worthy of his hire.

Mr. Michael Noble: When this question was discussed in Committee. I was, unfortunately, absent in Scotland. If I had been present, and my pair had voted the same way, the result in Committee would have been different. I gave evidence to the Wheatley Commission, and still believe, that in the case of the big new regions it is essential that the members of the new authorities should be paid as whole-time members. I am not entirely convinced that the same is true of the districts, but I am prepared to be open-minded about that, and on my present knowledge I would not say that their members ought not to be paid.
If Scottish local government is to make the great stride forward for which we are hoping, we have to get away from the committee system. I believe that we have to move to some kind of ministerial system. If that is so, I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) that the members of the regional councils will be virtually full-time. They may not have, as Ministers and Members of this House so often have, a seven-day-a-week job. But it will be a four-and-a-half or five-day-a-week job and I do not see how it is possible, with the best will in the world, in the conditions which exist in Scotland and throughout Britain, to find the sort of person of the right age group, of the right energy and so on who can give up that amount of time, however, public spirited he is, without doing enormous damage to his family life and everything else.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept New Clause 5 or its principle and


consider most carefully whether something of the sort should not be done. I do not believe that there is any alternative. One may not be forced to lay down exactly what should happen at this stage, but the power must exist to pay people where it is necessary. If we are to move to a ministerial system in local government, or something of the sort, there must be power to pay a reasonable rate for the job which members of regional councils will most certainly have to do if they are to succeed in their efforts.

Mr. John Smith: The region of Strathclyde is to have one of the biggest local government organisations in the United Kingdom. In terms of area, if not of population, it must be larger than the Greater London Council area. Indeed, the Strathclyde region is half of Scotland in terms of population and is almost half of Scotland geographically. It is immense. One is not here dealing with a normal local government creature. Strathclyde will not be local or even regional government but deminational government.
I wonder whether we are wise to create such a monster in such a small country as Scotland, but if we are to create it and to give it huge responsibilities in education, planning, housing and so on, the responsibilities which will be put upon its elected members are immense. They are probably in total half the responsibilities for Scotland laid upon the central government.
There is here a distinction between Members of Parliament and members of such a local authority. We are, quite rightly, paid. We are legislators. But I think that the job of being an executive arm of government, which is how a member of a local authority may be described, is in many cases more difficult and onerous than being a legislator. These people have to take day-to-day decisions and their attendance at committee meetings is fat more demanding than our attendance here. They have to take decisions about very large sums of money, on the awarding of contracts and many other important items.
The idea behind this proposal is that if we do not pay people a proper salary so that they can remain independent and their own men, they are a prey to corruption. The number of councillors in Scot-

land who resist corruption is remarkable. Local government in Scotland abounds with public-spirited people who staunchly resist all the temptations put their way, but I would like to see in such a job a man who, whatever his income or background, has a salary and an independence and does not have to worry about his family's financial position or about his job or promotion. He could face all of these things as we here are able to face them because we have a sufficient income to look after ourselves and our families. That is not often said in public debate but it is the core of this issue. The job of the convenor of planning or of housing in the new Strathclyde region will involve making decisions involving millions of pounds, and therefore it is only sensible to pay him a thousand or two for his trouble.
It was clear in Committee that the feeling that members of regional authorities at least should be paid was shared on both sides. But that was not reflected in the voting, which went pretty well on party lines. I hope that hon. Members, having had an opportunity to think more extensively about the issue since then, will be freed from any Whip or suggestion that people should support the Government in this matter. Surely, in this aspect at least of local government, we can take a non-party view, because it is in the interests of all of us that local government should work well.
It may be said that because the English and Welsh decided not to pay their councillors, the decision has been taken, in effect, for Scotland, because the Secretary of State could not very well argue such a case in Cabinet. But that sort of argument is a mockery of democracy. I hope that the House will take its courage in its hands. We are legislating for vast changes in Scottish local government. If we are willing to make such changes, how can we deny making proper provision for those who will carry those changes out? If we deny the sentiment behind New Clause 5 we shall be doing just that.
I do not recommend New Clause 5 as it stands, however. This is because I am not convinced that we need to pay district councillors. But I am convinced that we need to pay regional councillors. I suggest, therefore, that Amendment No. 378 is probably better than New Clause


5. But that is a minor matter. If there is a dispute here, it is whether we should pay members of these councils in principle. I hope that we do decide to pay them in principle. If we do not, we shall live to regret it.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Edward Taylor: I find myself very much in sympathy with what has been said so far, certainly from my experience as a member of a large town council. Those who were on Glasgow Town Council with me and those who have sat on some of the larger county councils appreciate the one big problem of local government—attracting the right calibre of councillor. The main reason why it is difficult is that so many people, because of their jobs, their responsibilities or even because of their poverty, find that they cannot give the necessary time to council work. For that reason if for no other it is important that at least in the larger areas where there is a great deal of work salaries should be paid so that all who wish will be able to stand for election.
Many people cannot afford the time away from work. Many have been forced to give up council work, not because they were losing the taste for it but because of the pressures of business or pressures from their bosses or because they were being passed over for promotion. It is important that this principle should be accepted.
On the other hand, it is certainly not a black and white issue. I am concerned about the fact that some of the massive regions, in particular the West of Scotland, will involve an enormous amount of work. With the committee system there will be meetings every day for people who will have to travel large distances. This will be virtually full-time employment. On the other hand, some of the smaller districts will not involve anything like the same amount of work. Some of the work could be done in the evenings. I am concerned about setting a hard-and-fast rule for a specified salary for all regional and district councillors.
It is clear that the work involved is different. Apart from that, some authorities will be able to manage by having a number of meetings in the evenings,

especially if it is a small district. It seems difficult to justify having the same basic salary for a member of the Greater Glasgow District Council and for the member of a small council which may involve few people and a minimum commitment to expenditure. It would be extremely difficult to lay down differentials in the statute. Might there not be some way of finding differentials?
I think the easiest way to do it is to follow the advice of the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith) and to say that at this stage we can all agree that membership of a regional council requires a salary but that some of us would have grave reservations about the justification of a salary for every district. This would probably be a step which could command general acceptance.
There are two minor points to be borne in mind. If we are to have substantial salaries for what at present we would call conveners of committees but who might operate under a different name in the new structure suggested by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), there may be a danger that some of our major departments which have, by and large, operated pretty efficiently will be placed in the position of having two managing directors instead of a chairman and a managing director.
It could be dangerous if the convener, a highly salaried person with immense powers, were to find himself operating a department with two managing directors instead of having someone in charge of the major projects and the other dealing with policies.
We have to decide what we are to do about a Scottish Assembly. This is relevant to the question whether we have salaried regional councillors. It is not the simple proposition whether we have a particular kind of Assembly, but whether we are to have a directly elected Assembly or whether we are to have an Assembly of elected Scotsmen with, as has been suggested, the conveners of all the regions coming together from time to time in Edinburgh to discuss Scottish questions, to question Ministers, to look at Bills in the pipeline. It is important to have some general indication of what the House and the Government feel, not about devolution and all that goes with it, but about whether we are thinking long term of an Assembly of elected Scots


or something much different, of a directly elected Assembly of Scotsmen.
In these circumstances my sentiments would be to go along in the meantime with the proposition that regional councillors should be salaried so that we can say that we want good local government and that we want the job to be open to as many people as possible. Under the present arrangements many people cannot afford to stand for a council because it might mean a loss of income or because it would mean the end of possible promotion prospects. I hope that we shall at least agree to payment for regional councillors.

Mr. David Steel: The more I listen the more I am persuaded of the virtues of Amendment No. 249 standing in the name of myself and my hon. and right hon. Friends. It simply says that members of regional councils shall be paid a salary, which I think meets the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) and the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith). I have doubts about paying a salary to district councillors, particularly in the Border area, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) will accept that. I agree it is important that we should attach some significance to New Clause 5 and should regard it as a slightly wider issue than the simple payment or otherwise of councillors. I suspect that the decision about whether to pay councillors will in itself reflect the attitude we adopt towards the new members of the local authorities.
I agree with all that has been said—that as these new groupings will be larger than the present ones it is important that the power lies effectively in the hands of elected members and that they be organised much more on a Cabinet basis, on a sound administration basis, than is the case in the present system, which is highly dependent on officials. Everything I hear leads me to believe that the opposite will happen. There is a general feeling in some parts of Scotland that the working parties of officials concerned with preparing the way for the changes in local government are already taking the decisions before this Bill has become law.
The clause is extremely important and one which I support on principle. Having read the Committee proceedings on this topic I hope that even if the Government resist the principle of paying councillors they will be more forthcoming than they were in Committee about what they do propose. We are presumably less than a year away from the elections, and I imagine we have all had the experience of approaching people who we think would be worthy candidates for the new local government authorities only to find it extremely difficult to give them chapter and verse about what will be expected of them and what sacrifices they will have to make. In Committee the Government were not nearly sufficiently specific about the financial arrangements. Now is the opportunity for them to spell out what is intended. I remain convinced of the merits of paying councillors in the new regions.
One important additional argument which has not been thoroughly rehearsed is that it is essential to make sure that we get the right spread of candidates from different backgrounds, occupations and walks of life and that we end the system under which those who enter local government are either the well-meaning or the well-to-do, with no one else having a chance. We must support the clause, and if it is supported by members of different parties so much the better.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) made reference to the limitation of service in local government to the well-meaning or the well-to-do. I am sure he will agree that nothing said in this debate should be regarded as being in any way a reflection on those who have served so well in local government. While it is true that there are some local councillors who are well-meaning and well-to-do, there are others who are well-meaning but not well-to-do. It is that group of persons that concerns me. In Committee I tabled amendments proposing that regional councillors should be paid a salary. I still adhere to that view.

Mr. John Smith: The hon. Gentleman did not vote for it.

Mr. MacArthur: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop the argument he will see why. I hope that he will be more sympathetic to my view today than he was on that occasion. I did not vote for my amendments on that occasion because they were probing amendments, as I explained. They were designed to find out what was in the Government's mind and what sort of attendance allowance was proposed.
At that time I did not mind whether payment to the regional councillor was made by attendance allowance or salary provided that the remuneration was adequate to enable him to perform the function assigned to him. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office, gave certain assurances which I accepted and which I still accept.
Between that debate and today many more representations have been made to me by people who seek to serve the local community as councillors in the regions and who feel that the assurances then given are inadequate. On reflection, I think that they are right. Much as I sympathise with the clause I cannot go all the way with it for two reasons. First, I am not convinced that there is an overwhelming case for providing a salary for district councillors. Secondly, I am not certain that the proposed salary of £2,000 for regional councillors is adequate.
Several hon. Members have said that we must open the doors as widely as we can so that no one will lose unreasonably by offering himself for election to a regional council, and I agree. A new geographical problem arises in regional organisation. One only has to look at Strathclyde region and the responsibilities which will fall on the Strathclyde regional councillors to see that they will carry the heaviest possible local responsibilities, for which I believe they need to be compensated in salary terms. I have often said that a regional councillor on the education authority in Strathclyde will carry a responsibility which no regional councillor anywhere in his previous guise has ever carried. He will be responsible for half the children of school age in Scotland. In many other aspects of local government a similar weight of responsibility will rest on his shoulders. If this rôle is to be properly fulfilled it is essential to

provide a proper remuneration for those whom we call upon to perform it.
Elections will take place next year and, in the normal turning of the party wheels, about now and in the next few months potential candidates are being interviewed and selected. They need to know what will be their position. In the last few weeks I have heard of several potential candidates in my area who would make excellent regional councillors but will be unable to accept the responsibility of standing for regional government unless they are assured that their income in total will not be over-adversely affected. They are prepared, as is every Member of Parliament, to make a certain sacrifice, but there is a point beyond which they are not prepared to go, and in today's terms they are right.
4.45 p.m.
In Committee I said that I was looking for reasonable remuneration and I did not mind whether it was by way of attendance allowance or salary. I asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to give an indication of the payment that the Government had in mind. I will repeat the critical paragraph of my speech:
It surely must be our wish to attract more young people into local government work. The heavy responsibilities of local government, particularly at regional level, will be such that I think membership of a local authority will become even more attractive than it is today to young people, but I fear that we may deter many of these potential and able recruits to local government unless they receive a reasonable remuneration for the extensive and demanding work they will have to do; and a remuneration, too, for the time spent in travelling, which, in some of the Scottish regions, will be great. It is possible that a reasonably generous allowance system could provide an adequate level of remuneration. I accept that, but I am a little concerned—and I do not want to elabor ate this point—that payment by way of allowance might possibly encourage some proliferation of committee work, which we would want to avoid.
The information given to me since that date is that that point has more substance in it than I realised at the time. There is a real risk that attendance allowances could lead to proliferation of committee work.
In his courteous and helpful reply, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State made a number of comments, one of


which was that we should assume that both forms of remuneration—by way of salary or allowance—will produce the same amount on average. He said:
We can then make a fair choice between the two methods.
I asked my hon. Friend:
I hope that my hon. Friend will tell the Committee on what basis he makes that assumption.
The Minister said:
I am making that assumption on the basis that I do not think that, whichever method is decided on, the amount of money which councillors, on average, will get will be substantially different."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, First Scottish' Standing Committee, 3rd April 1973; c. 1421–8.]
I do not challenge my hon. Friend on that, but I should like more information on what the amount is likely to be. Only when we know that can we determine whether the allowance system is likely to be as helpful to a regional councillor as is remuneration based on salary. I pressed my hon. Friend and in reply he said:
At this stage I cannot say anything about the actual amount. It is a considerable time before councillors will be paid.
I agree, because it is a year or so before the elections take place, but it is now that the parties are interviewing and selecting candidates, and the candiates need to know what will be their position. My hon. Friend went on, with his usual generosity:
 have tried to give as many assurances as I can that we intend to pay councillors thoroughly and well. We believe that the payment by attendance allowance is a better method of recognising the work that they do, and I urge the Committee to reject the amendments."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, First Scottish Standing Committee, 3rd April 1973; c. 1460.]
On that occasion, on balance, I accepted what my hon. Friend said and supported the Government's view. Since then I have had more information and I still look in vain for guidance from the Government on the amount of the attendance allowance at regional level. We need to know. We cannot expect people to come forward to serve local government in their present state of total ignorance. I still believe that there is a risk that the attendance allowance system would lead to a proliferation of committee work which we all wish to avoid. After looking at the report of the proceedings in Committee and having heard the de-

bate this afternoon, I am still firmly convinced that a salary paid to regional councillors is the way in which we need to solve this question, which has not yet been adequately met by governmental replies.

Mr. J. Grimond: I wish to make a short intervention. I support the principle of the proposals that we discuss today and in particular the amendment spoken to by my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel).
I will not repeat the arguments for the general proposition that representatives on the new bodies will need payment. However, I should like the Secretary of State, while examining the matter, to bear in mind the position of people who represent scattered areas.
Admittedly transport is improving and, indeed, local air transport is coming in in my constituency. However, a man who represents an outlying island on what will be the islands authority will have to spend possibly one day and two nights—or more—in Lerwick or Kirkwall much more frequently than anyone at present serving on an existing authority.
It is important that we get genuinely local representation. There is already some difficulty in getting such people in my constituency and in other parts of the Highlands. Excellent though many retired people are, on the whole there are too many of them on local authorities, and we should encourage younger people and people in active employment to join these authorities. That aim will be more important because what are at present called district councils will virtually be abolished. Many of the communities feel themselves to be separate communities. They will be more affected than ever by decisions taken in Lerwick, and we have to keep in mind the considerable gaps between it and the outlying areas.
I am sure our proposals will be received more happily if the representatives of these outlying areas are seen to be more active members of the community and we get a proper panel of people who may want to represent them from whom a choice can be made. I hope that the Secretary of State, when he considers the matter—which I do not deny is difficult—will keep that in mind.

Mr. Michael Clark-Hutchison: I think regional councillors should be paid a salary of about £2,000 a year. I do not think district councillors should be paid.

Mr. Harry Ewing: The Secretary of State must have been impressed by the arguments put forward today and must now understand and realise the degree of concern especially among local authority people in Scotland, particularly those prepared to submit themselves to election on these regional and district council bodies.
At the time we seek to move into a new form of local government, it is almost inconceivable that the Government appear to be intent on holding on to what can only be described as a relic of the past.
I support the clause, although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith) that Amendment No. 249 seems to offer a more reasonable approach to the problem. I say that for a good reason. It would appear that £2,000 a year in 1973 and 1974 is not the very attractive financial proposition that many Members of the House of Commons have set it out to be. It would probably only continue the problem that we are trying to solve if, by paying someone £2.000 a year, we merely forced them into finding some other part-time employment. Surely the Secretary of State agrees that this would only continue the problem.
What concerns me about the debate and the tenor of it is the seeming acceptance that if we paid councillors we could attract a better calibre than was the case when we did not pay them. I do not accept that. The prime reason why I support payment, especially for members of regional councils, is so as not to attract those new professional people who seem to be standing on the sidelines waiting to be invited and lured in by the prospect of payment. We should retain some of the very good calibre and quality people already existing in our local authorities. Because of the new duties and onerous tasks these people will be asked to perform, there is a great danger that they will be lost to local government.
I am more concerned to retain the first-class quality that we have at present than many hon. Members seem to be

when they seek to open the doors of local government by payment to a long queue of professional people like doctors and ministers—one has only to name them, and they will be in the queue if payment is available.
I shall be supporting the new clause in the Division Lobby, but I wish to qualify my support with those few remarks. I want to make it clear that my confidence and faith is in the quality of the men and women at present running our local authorities. It is for them that I speak today.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: I too support the concept of the new clause, and I agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing). We are not necessarily trying to cast the net a bit wider. We seek to give proper rewards to those who at present are doing the job and possibly to ensure that others come in as well.
I speak with personal experience of membership of a large local authority. I refer to Glasgow Corporation. No one will deny that that is a large local authority, although it is not as large as the new Strathclyde authority will be.
I became a councillor at the age of 23 when I was not married and had no family responsibilities. Money was not quite so important to me at that age as it was later on. Eventually when I married and had a family clearly I had more responsibilities in my council work. I was the convener of a major committee and I had to spend much more time working in Glasgow Corporation by the time I was 30 than I had to when I was 23.
In circumstances of that kind one of two things happens. Either a man decides that he does not want to hold an important post in a region. Alternatively he leans very heavily on the officials in his department. I was responsible for the initiation of the Glasgow overspill programme a number of years ago. That involved my being in St. Andrew's House almost as frequently as the Secretary of State. In those days as a young councillor I was more often consulted by the Secretary of State than I have ever been in the past three years. I spent a considerable amount of time in his


Department and going round with his officials all over Scotland selling the concept of overspill. If I had not been prepared to sacrifice promotion in my business life, I could not have done the job.
When I was doing that job I resented one thing deeply. On one occasion I went to see the city of Copenhagen. Incidentally, I went there on holiday and at my own expense and not that of the Glasgow Corporation. I found that my opposite number in Copenhagen received a salary of about £2,000 a year and had a secretariat available to him. I envied him enormously. When I returned to Glasgow I considered my position. I was responsible for running the overspill programme. I used to look at other appointments. I saw that people who served as part-time members of the White Fish Authority, the South of Scotland Electricity Board or of a new town board received a remuneration of some kind or another. I considered that I worked a great deal harder as a senior councillor than any of these people, yet they were getting £1,500 or £1,700 to do their jobs.
The Secretary of State makes dozens of appointments in the course of a year to new towns, electricity boards and all kinds of authorities. If it is good enough to pay someone £1,000 a year to serve on a new town board on a part-time basis with one meeting a week or one meeting a month, it is good enough to pay those who serve on local authorities. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to think about this because it is a matter which irks members of local authorities. From my personal experience of work in planning and overspill in Glasgow I know, like my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) who preceded me in those responsibilities, that it is almost a full-time job.
The people who will be responsible for planning in the Strathclyde region will have a more onerous job than any of the Under-Secretaries of State at the Scottish Office. It is said that next to the President of the United States the Mayor of New York has the most onerous job in that country. Similarly, the person who will have the responsibility of looking after one of the major depart-

ments of the new Strathclyde region will have one of the most difficult tasks in the country. He should be properly rewarded. Certainly he should not be impeded from doing the job that he sets out to do.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I seek to elicit from the Secretary of State first a fact and secondly a value judgment.
Taking the fact first, when the Scottish Office was thinking about this matter how much time was it reckoned that the holder of a key position in a major region would spend on his local authority work? Is it to be two days, two and a half days, three days, three and a half days, four days, four and a half days, or five days? A certain assumption must have been made. I want specifically to know what assumption has been made as to the amount of time that, say, a chairman of planning will spend on his work. Until we know that, I do not see how we can come to a sensible conclusion.
As to the value judgment, if councillors are not to get some fair remuneration, who does the Scottish Office think it will get in those important positions? I should be appalled if there had not been detailed consideration of this point. That detailed consideration must have arrived at a conclusion. If the conclusion is that there will not be a vast number of retired army officers, people who have worked in trade unions and businesses and such few people as have the leisure to do this kind of work, who on earth will the Scottish Office get?
I put those two specific questions: first, the time which will be spent by the individual selected; and, secondly, what Scottish Office thinking is about the type of person who will be recruited for these jobs. I look forward to answers to those questions.

Mr. David Lambie: I support the principle of and the sentiments behind the clause. However, in the present context it is unrealistic in both magnitude and scope until we know what the Government intend to pay by way of attendance allowance. Until we know that, we cannot equate which will be the better payment—the £2,000 annual salary proposed in the clause or the attendance allowance offered by the Government.


Before we take a vote on this matter the Secretary of State must come clean and tell us what the Government propose by way of the attendance allowance.
We know the Government's thinking on this matter. The reorganisation of local government in England and Wales is a year ahead. The Government have put forward figures for attendance allowances for local government units in England and Wales corresponding to our regional and district authorities. We know that the Government propose a daily allowance of £14 for a regional authority and £12 for a district authority.

Mr. MacArthur: How many days?

Mr. Lambie: I shall be coming to that point.
The proposals in the clause are unrealistic in their scope because of the imbalance between region and district in Scotland. I am not to blame for that. Many hon. Members who served on the Committee are to blame for that imbalance. In a situation where more than half the people of Scotland are in one region with a handful of people and two or three cows and goats in other regions, we cannot have a figure covering the whole of Scotland. Strathclyde must be given special consideration.
Anyone who understands the work of major counties and cities in Scotland knows that local authority representatives, if they are doing their jobs properly, work five days a week, Monday to Friday. Every convener on Ayr County Council is either at the county buildings or doing corresponding work in some other area for his committee from Monday to Friday.
If the Government are thinking of an attendance allowance of £14 a day, calculated on a five-day week that is £70 a week. On a four-week month it is £280. If these councillors work every month in the year, with the exception of August, their total income by way of attendance allowance will be £3,080. The clause is offering only £2,000. I agree that for Berwick and East Lothian, the Border areas and the Highlands and Islands—the Tory and Liberal areas of Scotland—that is good enough, but it is not good enough for the Labour people who will be representing the Strathclyde area.
How little hon. Members know about the work of local councillors when they suggest that the functions allocated to district authorities are of no importance. The suggestion is that district councillors should not be paid because they will be doing nothing. Anyone who has any connection with the local government family knows that housing is the major problem affecting local authorities and councils. Out of every hundred people who come to one's door with a local government problem, 90 are concerned with housing or associated problems. The numbers who come dealing with education, planning, roads and drainage are very small compared with the numbers who are worried about modernisation, allocations, exchanges and rents. These are the important matters. That is why I cannot understand or accept the suggestion that there should be no payment for district councillors.
If the Government's proposal goes through and we get Cunninghame as one of the districts of Northern Ayrshire it will be a major area from a population point of view. It is an area with a large number of local authorities where 90 per cent. of the people live in municipal houses. Again, we are not dealing with the Highlands and Islands, where there are very few municipal houses, but with the traditional Labour areas of the West of Scotland, where the majority of people live in municipal houses. Therefore, the majority of people are more directly concerned with the district than the regional councillor.
I hope that the people who are lucky enough to be elected to the Cunninghame district of Northern Ayrshire—I trust that they will be Labour councillors—will not accept the £1,000 proposed in the clause, bearing in mind what the Government are proposing for England and Wales. I understand that they propose for areas corresponding to district authorities in Scotland an attendance allowance of £12 a day. According to the calculation that I did a couple of minutes ago—I was never very good at doing this on the blackboard when I was a teacher, but I hope that I am correct now—if we divide £1,000 by £12 we get approximately 84 days. So a person in England and Wales has to attend council business at district level for only 84 days a year to get £1,000. Yet my hon. Friend the Member


for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) wants a district councillor in Scotland to spend two or three days almost every week in the year on council business to get that amount. A district council area in Ayrshire and the West of Scotland contains a large number of people. It is not like Moray and Nairn, an area represented by the Secretary of State, where councillors deal with only a handful of people. Our representatives will be dealing with thousands of people in areas where there are large numbers of municipal houses. Therefore, district councillors in Cunninghame and the other districts in the West of Scotland will, if they do their work properly, be on district council work for two or three days in each week for most months of the year just like the regional councillors. Therefore, the figure of £1,000 is unrealistic in the context of the Strathclyde area.
I can support the clause only if I am given an assurance that the Government will take heed of further amendments and break up the Strathclyde area. The problem will not then be so great. If the Government stick to the large area, I shall not he able to support the clause or the amendments associated with it because they are not fair to people who are willing to become Scottish councillors compared with what the Government are proposing to do in England and Wales. This is one occasion when I am pro-English. I want the conditions available to local government areas in England and Wales because they are double what is proposed for Scottish councillors.

Mr. Maclennan: Although my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) looked at the clause very much from the point of view of West Central Scotland, I do not think he dissented from the general consensus that has been expressed about it being important that the members of the new local authorities should be paid salaries. He was seeking to elicit further clarity from the Government about the appropriate sum.
I support the clause and the associated amendments very much from the point of view of one representing a Highlands constituency, the problems of which, in my judgment, are no less in importance and difficulty than those of West Central

Scotland, about which my hon. Friend spoke.
Looking at the burdensome responsibilities imposed on local authorities in the Highlands concerning the structural planning for the development of the oil industry alone, we must recognise the scope and scale of the problems that they are being called upon to consider. I cannot believe that the Government consider that the conveners of the new planning committee in the Highlands region dealing with the structural planning of this new industry should be worth a salary less than that of a part-time member of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Indeed, in my judgment, it would be reasonable to expect the members of the new regional authority to be paid substantially more to reflect their greater responsibility for finance and their greater difficulties in attending meetings.
I think it is right to express to the Secretary of State the wide and deep concern in the Highlands region that only the wrong people will be able to come forward to participate in regional government there because of the immense time which will be taken by serving on the regional authority.
5.15 p.m.
My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire spoke of the amount of time that would be given to local government by people in his part of the country, but those who sit for a region which constitutes almost half the land mass of Scotland will have immense distances to travel and will have to take a great deal of time off work in order to perform their public duties. In those circumstances, it is unsatisfactory that it has been left until so late in the day to tell the people of Scotland what the remuneration is to be.
People have been asking me whether they can reasonably expect their expenses to be covered. As the right hon. Gentleman realises, this is a matter for the individual. It is not a matter that can apply across the board. Each member of a new regional authority will have to do his own arithmetic when the figures become clear, but what is imperative is that a substantial salary is paid to members of the new regional councils if we are to attract and retain the services of top calibre people.
A number of people in my constituency who have served long and well in local authorities have the gravest doubts about their capacity to sustain the financial loss that will be involved in serving on a regional council, even on the assumption that quite generous allowances will be paid, because of the enormous amount of time that will be entailed in travelling round the regions to which they will belong.
I hope that the House will accept the new clause, that before the right hon. Gentleman responds to the debate he will give due weight to all the representations that have been made, and that he will be forthcoming about the financial consequences of standing for election to a regional authority.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: It might be convenient if I intervened now, as those who made clear that they intended to take part in the debate have done so.
The whole question of salaries for councillors was debated in Standing Committee, but it might be helpful if I restated the arguments which the Government then put forward through my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger).
There is nothing between those who are putting forward the new clause and the amendments and the Government's proposals in the Bill from the point of view of the results that we are trying to achieve. We are all trying to provide remuneration on a scale that will relieve the hardship that exists under the present situation in some cases, and that might exist for people holding office as councillors under the future system.
In addition, we are seeking a means that will establish payment as of right, without having to go through the niggling procedures that are required by the system of loss of earnings. Further, we want to encourage candidates of all kinds to enter local government. What is at issue is the best method of achieving those aims, and not whether one system is more or less generous than another.
The main advantage of the salary system which has been put forward in the new clause by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) is its recognition that a councillor is doing important managerial

and representational work on behalf of the community. That was the point of view put forward by the Wheatley Commission. For the ordinary councillor working on a part-time basis—and I believe that ordinary councillors' service will continue to be part-time, although some who have special duties will clearly have a great deal of their time taken up by them—the level might not seem very impressive, and it all comes back to the method of payment. The attendance allowance system has certain advantages over the salary method, and these can be illustrated.

Mr. Mackintosh: The right hon. Gentleman will notice that in the clause I make special reference to chairman of committees and councillors who have special executive functions. I am not suggesting a uniform salary.

Mr. Campbell: I shall come to that, as I shall to the points made by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell).
Both proposed alterations find it necessary to make a distinction between regional and district councillors. Under New Clause 5, regional councillors would get the double the amount of salary of district councillors. Under Amendment No. 70, regional councillors would get a salary, and district councillors would not. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian proposes a special allowance for councillors carrying special responsibilities. The hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie) said that there would be onerous jobs to be done under the new system of local government, and he cited membership of a planning committee as an example.
The attendance allowance system would mean that it would not be necessary to make special decisions on who should get extra salary. No special machinery would be needed to recompense those who had specially onerous tasks to perform, whereas under the clause it would be necessary for the authority itself to decide which councillors had special executive functions and by how much their salaries should be augmented. That would be likely to be a source of embarrassing debate in the local authority, and the Government's


system has clear advantages in those respects.
The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian and my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) said that an attendance allowance system might lead to the unnecessary protracting and multiplying meetings, and that that would not happen if salaries were paid, but I believe that a daily rate of attendance allowances would not lead to that result. There would be no reason for continuing the meeting, as I believe there can be under the present system. The incentive would be to complete the business as efficiently and expeditiously as possible.

Mr. MacArthur: There might be an incentive to carry the work over into the next day's business.

Mr. Campbell: That is what I call the proliferation side of the matter. I agree that, whereas there would be no incentive to prolong individual meetings, there might be a tendency—I am not suggesting councillors would do this—to multiply meetings in certain instances. There would be no temptation to do that if salaries were paid.
I am very much aware of the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), because he has expressed them to me as well as putting them forward in this debate. I agree with him that it is important to get suitable candidates for the new system of local government. I am not seeking to defend the present system. The attendance allowance system would be a great improvement on the present system, which is based on the loss of earnings, and I am sure we all agree that it must be changed.
We have looked at the whole question again since the Second Reading and the debate in Committee, but our conclusion is still that, while the Wheatley arguments in favour of a salary have a lot of force—and I concede that—and that the commission did a valuable service by opening up the whole subject for discussion, the practical advantages are on the side of a generous system of attendance allowances for all councillors as of right.

Mr. Robert Hughes: How much?

Mr. Campbell: The amount has not been decided, but it is a matter of having a generous system of attendance allowances. We believe that such a system, besides meeting the requirements of the district and islands authorities, which apparently many hon. Members agree would be the case, would also be appropriate for the requirements of the new regional authorities.
I should now like to deal briefly with another proposition put forward in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) who I know cannot be present at this debate because he is engaged on other parliamentary duties. My hon. Friend suggested that councillors might be paid partly by salary and partly by an attendance allowance. We said that we would look at this. The Government have examined it closely but have reached the conclusion that it would not be practicable.
The idea was that the fixed costs involved in being a councillor would be met by salary, while the attendance allowance would compensate for attendances at meetings and on approved duties. But to arrive at a level of salary it would be necessary to evaluate the fixed costs on the basis of objective factors such as were discussed in committee—postage, telephones, secretarial assistance and similar expenses. When these are costed in annual payment terms they amount to little more than a retainer, which is not the sort of sum which is consonant with the notion of a salary.
It seems more appropriate that these fixed costs should be recognised in the fixing of the rate of attendance allowance and this is how we propose to deal with the problem.

Mr. David Steel: Would the right hon Gentleman be more forthcoming? He is shooting down many ideas which have been put to him by hon. Members but he has not told us, and he needs to clarify, what is proposed by the Government for new councillors.

Mr. Campbell: I am about to come to the matter raised by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire. The right hon. Member for Orkney and


Shetland (Mr. Grimond) asked whether the Government could say more about what we proposed in response to questions raised in Committee, to which the Under-Secretary said we would be giving further thought.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland raised a matter regarding travelling. In the case of a council member travelling a considerable distance and having, in particular, to be away from home overnight for the purpose of attending a council meeting or carrying out some other approved duty, the kind of attendance allowance payable would have regard not merely to the duration of the approved duty but to the time spent in getting to and from his home. For those travelling long distances the necessity of being away from home overnight could continue into a second day, and that would be the reason for an attendance allowance being paid for another day.
Under the new system of local government it will not be necessary for councillors from the more remote parts of Scotland to travel such long distances as they do at present. This is because councillors will not have to travel to the mainland from Orkney or Shetland, or from the Western Isles, as they do at present. One advantage of the reform of local government will be that such long journeys will not be necessary.
Under Clause 46 of the Bill a councillor would be entitled, in addition to the attendance allowance, to claim travelling and subsistence allowance in respect of journeys.
The hon. Member for West Lothian raised two points. The first was whether it was possible to work out an average time which a councillor was likely to spend, in terms of days or weeks, or in any other way, in doing his job. Conditions vary so greatly, with different types of councillor, and in different parts of Scotland, that it is not possible to answer this. It is recognised that a councillor with a special task, such as chairman of a planning committee, would be expected to spend more time on the job than would the ordinary members of the council or committee. The attendance allowance system automatically provides a solution to that problem.
The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we could indicate particular categories of persons who were likely to be candidates for councils, or whom we were contemplating as candidates. We hope that all types of person will be available. I am sure this would be the aim of the whole House. Council work should not be confined to persons who are retired. We do not believe that an attendance allowance need be a deterrent to a candidate. The present system of loss of earnings allowance can be, and is, a deterrent to some candidates who might otherwise have entered local government. But I do not think that there is such a difference between an attendance allowance of the kind that we are proposing, and of which I have given more details today, and a salary as to discourage people from coming into local government who would otherwise come forward.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Dalyell: Would the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that his answer to my second question is so vague as to be meaningless? It was a totally unacceptable generality in answer to a very fair and real issue. On the first question, would it not be more candid with the House to say that there are certain key councillors who will have to work five days a week at least if they are to be effective?

Mr. Campbell: Yes, and if that is the case—I suggested that some people with special responsibilities will have to give up more time than committee members who do not have those responsibilities—this is met by an attendance allowance system in a way in which it would not be if they were all paid an equal salary or had to go through the procedure prescribed in the clause, whereby the council itself would then have to work out how much extra should be given to particular members.

Mr. Ross: The right hon. Gentleman has more than once mentioned an allowance. Once he ventured to say that it would be a generous allowance. Can he not tell us what this allowance will be? If he cannot tell us today, when shall we know? The parties have begun the process of selecting candidates, and this situation is a handicap.

Mr. Campbell: I have told the House that I am not in a position to give figures


today. It will be a long time before the new councils come into office—

Mr. Ross: It is only next year.

Mr. Campbell: Yes, but I recognise also that there is an interest in the figures. I am as anxious as anyone else that this matter should be settled soon and announced. But I am not in a position to give figures today. However, I have said that our proposals depend upon this being a generous attendance allowance. I cannot go further than that.

Mr. Noble: I am trying to get my right hon. Friend to help me. I am convinced that this matter should be on a salaried basis. I am prepared to support my right hon. Friend if I can, but I find myself in a quite impossible position.
An attendance allowance can be a generous one, and in the terms that we are thinking about at the moment, of the heads of important departments in the big new regional areas, where I believe they will be doing four-and-a-half or five days a week, if we said that the attendance allowance would certainly not be less than £20 that is coming to the figure that I think they should get as a salary. Therefore, I could then say "If the Government feel strongly that that is how it should be done, for various administrative reasons, I am prepared to support my right hon. Friend." But I cannot support my right hon. Friend when I have no idea whether his conception of a generous allowance is £10 or £20.
Surely the benefit of the salary and perhaps of the attendance allowance is that it can be varied according to the regions concerned and the responsibilities of those affected. But, if I understand my right hon. Friend correctly, his idea is that there should be an attendance allowance of £5, £10, £20 or £30—we must try to get people now on this basis, without knowing what it is—and he is asking us to support him, hoping that he will be generous. If he is not, people will feel gravely let down. I find myself in great difficulty.

Mr. Campbell: I recognise the difficulty about my not being able to give precise figures for an attendance allowance, but I am in the same position as regards a salary. Although the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian suggests a salary of £2,000 for regional£

councillors and £1,000 for district councillors, that is not agreed by some hon. Members on the same side. If I were proposing a salaried system, I should still not be able today to tell my right hon. Friend what the proposed salaries would be, nor the differentials, if there were to be a differential system as suggested for those who are chairmen of important committees. I recognise that my right hon. Friend would have liked a figure and I am sorry that I am unable to give a figure today, but it would be exactly the same if we were discussing salaries.
I approach this on the basis, when comparing a possible salary system with an attendance allowance system, that, so far as possible, the total amount paid to councillors would be about the same and, therefore, that there would not be a greater amount paid out by the Exchequer under a salary system than under an attendance allowance system.

Mr. Edward Taylor: On the same point, could my right hon. Friend at least tell us the principle of the allowance? Is it to be for attendance at a Committee meting in the course of a day? If someone attends five meetings of one hour each in a week, would he get five attendance allowances? But if he attended two meetings which totalled five hours, would he get only two allowances? Would this be an allowance for a day if the councillor clocked in or would it be calculated from the number of hours spent on the job? Some councils might arrange their meetings over a week so as to provide a living wage, whereas efficiency might dictate that they should take the work in two or three days. Will the allowance be a clocking-in allowance or an hourly allowance?

Mr. Campbell: I should not like to call it a clocking-in allowance, but it would be for approved duties of various kinds, and it would be for the day. That is to say, if an approved duty were performed on a day and it only took up half a day, the daily allowance would be paid. But there would be no question of dividing up the day into different parts. As my hon. Friend suggested, this would be far too complicated.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Figures have been quoted today of allowances to be paid to comparable authorities in


England and Wales. Are those figures accurate? If they are, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that the allowances paid to councillors in Scotland will not be less than those paid in England and Wales?

Mr. Campbell: So far as I know, nothing has been decided about England and Wales. Figures have been bandied about, as they have been bandied about for Scotland, but, so far as I know, nothing has been decided.

Mr. Maclennan: A very important democratic point is at issue here. Is this not a matter on which the House of Commons should express its view? We wish to express a view that is as helpful as possible in these circumstances, but if the Secretary of State arrogates to himself the right to determine the quantity and formulation of the attendance allowance after the Bill has passed from the House, the House will have absolutely no power of review. It is extraordinary that after months and even years of debate the Government cannot give the House some facts on this point. Why has the right hon. Gentleman waited so long to come to a decision on what is surely a supremely straightforward and simple matter?

Mr. Campbell: These matters are still being worked on. Although it has been suggested that figures have been decided on for England and Wales, this is not so. Some figures may have been discussed informally, but nothing has yet been decided upon or announced. The English Bill went through in the last Session. This matter is still open and must clearly take into account the position when the councils are set up.
I should have liked to be able to give the House a figure today. It would clearly have been easier for me, and I am sorry that I cannot.

Mr. Lambie: rose—

Mr. MacArthur: I am sorry to interrupt—

Mr. Lambie: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely the Secretary of State does not intend to give way only to his hon. Friends? Surely he will give way to hon. Members on this side?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): That is not a point of order.

Mr. MacArthur: My right hon. Friend has been more than generous in giving way to both sides, and both sides appreciate this very much. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) said, the Secretary of State, I know unwillingly, has put us into a great difficulty. The difficulty is not only for us but for the many people in Scotland who are wondering whether to stand for regional government or not. They must know how they will be placed financially. Their jobs may be in jeopardy. Their family life may be made more difficult. They must know how they stand.
I raised this matter, together with other hon. Members, at the beginning of April. We were told then that the Government could give us no information. My right hon. Friend cannot give any information today. When shall we get this information? We need it to make our plans for the future.

Mr. Campbell: I recognise my hon. Friend's point. But if the system were a salaried system I would still not be in a position to give my hon. Friend the figures, although I hope that we shall be able to make an announcement as soon as we can on this matter.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Campbell: No. I must press on.
My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire is right to raise this matter. But it would apply to a salaried system as well as the system that the Government are proposing. It is a matter of figures. The salaried system would be more difficult because of the differentials which the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian has put into the new clause.
The new clause proposes that there should be payment of salaries for both regional and district councillors. It has been criticised because it proposes amounts. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) disagrees about the amount put in for district councillors, and many of those who have taken part in the debate believe that salaries should be paid to regional councillors only and not to all councillors.
The Government recognise the arguments put forward. There are strong arguments in favour of salaries. We believe that the arguments in favour of attendance allowances are stronger. We would not defend the present system of loss of earnings allowance. We seek to replace that, recognising that it has faults. But we see that there are arguments, concerning the regions particularly, for a salary.
For the reasons that I have given, however, we believe that these amendments should not be accepted and that the system of attendance allowance does not have the disadvantage which some hon. Members have connected with the present system. We believe that it is the appropriate way for both regional and district councillors.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Robert Hughes.

Mr. James Dempsey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) has been called to speak mean that the debate is now being wound up and that other hon. Members who are anxious to speak are not likely to catch your eye?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I appreciate that there may be other hon. Members who wish to speak. Mr. Hughes.

Mr. Robert Hughes: My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) moved the clause very succinctly and persuasively. Almost every hon. Member who has spoken in the debate, excluding the Secretary of State, has spoken in favour, basically, of the new clause as a principle.
Everyone will be extremely disappointed at the inadequate response of the Secretary of State. It is not good enough for the right hon. Gentleman, after we have had a very long debate in Committee going over these points of principle, to say that he is not in a position to tell us how much the attendance allowance will be. I regret that the right hon. Gentleman's reply showed no new thinking on the problem that we had before us in Committee.
What is at stake here is a matter of principle—whether we decide on paying a straightforward salary or decide on an

attendance allowance. There is no doubt that we are changing the system. No one is under any illusion that we are continuing the loss of earnings allowance which exists. We are all aware that this is being changed and that the attendance allowance is to be a considerable payment per day, or as the case may be determined. This is certainly a big improvement on the existing system.
5.45 p.m.
My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian committed perhaps the cardinal of sins in the clause: he suggested something positive. Apparently, as long as one flannels in one's amendments they are acceptable. It is unfortunate that this has been seized upon by some, especially by the Secretary of State, as an excuse to say "£2,000 is the figure that has been mentioned, but it is not known whether or not that will be adequate".
The great advantage of paying salaries to all councillors is that they would be treated as equals. The tendency would be to spread the load around among councillors and to see that they all got a share of the jobs to be done. There would be no room for petty jealousy or for people to suggest that someone was on a committee only because of the additional attendance allowance that was being paid. I regret the idea throughout that an attendance allowance will mean a tendency for the proliferation of meetings, and so on. That is a denigration of our councillors.
I do not know how those who serve in local government have stuck it for so long. They have often lost a great deal of money. Often they have had problems in their family lives with no reward. Members of Parliament may often be kicked around. But people in local government are not paid and receive very little in the way of good words. Much should be said in favour of them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sterling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing) made one of the most important points. It is not by providing a salary or a generous attendance allowance that we shall attract new people into local government. We shall still attract young, enthusiastic and vigorous people. It is not difficult to get people on to councils. The difficulty is in keeping them and seeing that they do not suffer as a result


of their attendance at meetings by missing promotion or in their family life.

Mr. MacArthur: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is not simply a question of keeping people on existing bodies but trying to encourage those on existing bodies to move to new bodies? This may well mean larger responsibilities involving more travelling and more time. Those are the people who today are asking whether they can afford it. Until that question is answered, we shall be in ignorance, and on this occasion the ignorance is not blissful.

Mr. Hughes: There is nothing between between the hon. Member and myself on this matter. He is speaking of people thinking of what new council to join. I am speaking of the general case where people have joined local authorities and find that the financial sacrifice is far too much to bear and feel that they have to give it up.
Just as many of us come to Parliament, when people come to local government they often think that they know all the answers. But it takes them three or four years, and possibly longer, to pick up the threads. Very often local government loses people at just the point when they are beginning to make an impact and beginning to take over the responsible jobs. We must not forget that in terms of efficiency.
It is especially unfortunate that the Secretary of State is unable to change his mind on this matter, particularly as he was telling us in our debate on new Clause 3 that he was relaxing the control which the Secretary of State for Scotland has over a whole range of duties that local government should have. I take that with a pinch of salt, bearing in mind other actions taken by the Secretary of State on education and on housing finance to direct what local authorities can do.
Leaving that aside, however, if the Secretary of State is serious in saying that he wants to delegate more and more authority to local government he ought to be prepared to see that those concerned have he necessary salaries.
I shall not detain the House for long. I am impressed by the way in which every hon. Member in Committee and

virtually every hon. Member in the House has spoken in favour of a salaried service. I am particularly impressed by the change of mind of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), who has obviously given a great deal of thought to this matter. He was no wholly convinced in Committee. Now he is thoroughly convinced of the principle that we ought to have a salaried service.
When we are dealing with later amendments, I hope that the Secretary of State will not tell us that, after the length of time for which we have discussed local government reforms and after the discussions that there must have been at Cabinet level about allowances, he is unable to say what the attendance allowance will be.
There may have been misunderstanding on the Secretary of State's part when I intervened. I ask him, first, if a figure had been decided upon for England and Wales. He tells me—I am prepared to accept his word—that no decision has been taken. I asked him, secondly, whether he would guarantee that the allowances paid to regional and district councillors in Scotland would not be less than those paid in England and Wales. I received no answer, perhaps due to an oversight. If it was not an oversight and if the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to give me that guarantee, every hon. Member should unhesitatingly go into the Lobby in favour of the clause.

Mr. Dempsey: The problem posed by the clause is well known to those with local government experience. I am surprised at the Secretary of State's naivety. He says that he does not know the figures. We all know that the figures have been announced—£14 for regional councillors and £12 for district councillors. We merely await the date in England and Wales.
We are attempting to elect what might be called a mini-parliament in the Strathclyde region. Northern Ireland has six counties, a population of 1½ million, and its own full-time Assembly. Strathclyde has six counties, a population of 2 million, and is to get a voluntary Assembly. I have never heard anything so indefensible.
One way of electing a mini-parliament is to ensure that a salary is paid. Another way is to arrange for allowances. The Secretary of State overlooked a most important element. Perhaps it was due to his inexperience, for I think that he has never served on a council, otherwise he would know the pitfalls of operating a system of allowances or compensation for loss of earnings. There is no security. Security is the important thing—the right to receive a salary, the right to be superannuated, the right to security for one's wife and family if one falls sick. There will be no such security under the allowance system, because anyone who falls sick will not be able to attend.
Employers will not allow their employees to be away for four to six days a week and pay them full salary or sick pay during their absence. I can recall that some of our people at Lanark county council contracted food poisoning after having had a hotel meal. They were unable to attend work for the next two days. They received no wages from their employers and nothing from the county council because they were unfit to attend council meetings.
What up and coming young person will be willing to make such a sacrifice and serve on a council when he realises that his home, his family and his own future will be jeopardised through lack of security? That is not propaganda. This happens to local government members, as those with experience of the lack of security know full well.
I ask the Secretary of State to reconsider his attitude. I know outstanding councillors who have already made up their minds not to stand for the regions because they cannot afford to do so. It is not possible for anyone to say at this stage how many days' council activity will be involved. Only the council can determine its system of committee management, its rota of meetings, and how many visits will be made to sites and projects. Therefore, it would be mere conjecture to forecast how many days councillors would spend on council duty and thus qualify for allowances.
The Labour Party has its circulars out calling for the nomination of suitable persons for a panel of local government candidates from which new candidates

will be chosen. Before such candidates would opt for selection they are entitled to know the economic consequences of any such action. If the Secretary of State cannot tell us now, he should tell us tomorrow at the latest what the scheme of allowances will be.
Take a council like Strathclyde for a region stretching from the West Coast of Scotland and part of Argyllshire to Beatock well down into the South. I heard of a senior traffic police officer who said that under the new region he could lose himself for a week by visiting all his police stations before he ever thought of taking a holiday. That will give hon. Members an idea of the size of the region. I do not expect ever to see a director of education, a medical officer of health, a chief constable or any such senior officer. They will be able to live in an ivory tower for the rest of their lives, because the region is so widely scattered.
Either the officials or the councillors are to be given more power. If the councillors take power after having gone to the hustings and been elected to do so, they will be engaged for a number of days per week on council administration in the Strathclyde region. They are entitled to know the rate for the job.
After all, if in accordance with all the Press rumours the Secretary of State loses his job he will not apply for another job without knowing the rate. Neither would anyone else in this building. Neither should we expect a candidate for a regional or district council to do so.
Elected local government work is one of the most insecure steps a man can take in life. The job is guaranteed for only four years. What happens after that is in the lap of the gods. Councillors are entitled to security during those four years. There activities on the council will involve their giving up their employment for most days a week. I need not impress upon the Secretary of State that a man who is not attending his work regularly is hardly likely to get promotion. The security of their wives and families is jeopardised and the question of their future is put in doubt. This is a hazardous and inevitable consequence for anyone who decides to stand for representation on any council, including the regional and district councils.
6.0 p.m.
The least that the Secretary of State could do would be to reconsider his attitude on the matter. I believe that we shall live to regret the steps we are taking in forming these new regions. The new regions are too big and too unwieldy and they will cultivate bureaucracy. We should, therefore, set out to recruit the best people we can to serve on them.
In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing) I say that of course we are anxious to retain the best people in local authority administration but we are equally anxious to attract others of the same calibre to serve on the new councils. We want the best type of men and women so that we make a success of the new regions and the new local authority organisations. Irrespective of their size and their impersonality, which is an important element in determining the structure, the new regional councils exist and we have to accept them. We have to make sure that they will be democratically controlled, that consumers will have a first-class service and that only the best people serve as representatives on them. That is why we should guarantee a decent salary with security.

Mr. Mackintosh: With the leave of the House I should like to make a couple of points in concluding the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) drew attention to a very important weakness in the attendance allowance; namely, that a person would not get it if he were sick or could not attend. There is no security. It is vitally important to give a clear-cut indication of what people will get if they take this step. There is a tremendous weakness in the whole attendance allowance system in that people will attempt to push the allowance up by doing one meeting a day and spreading their work over a number of days if they can, rather than concentrating their work and providing a snappy and efficient service, which they would provide if they were paid a proper salary.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) raised the question of how the clause will affect Clause 46, which deals with travel and subsistence. I can assure him that it

will have no effect on Clause 46. Every hon. Member who has contributed to the debate has favoured a salary for local councillors. Some have favoured the Wheatley argument that there should be a lesser salary for district councillors. We cannot advocate that there should be a salary for those serving on the regional councils and yet say that district councillors, for example, responsible for 1·1 million people in Glasgow, should get nothing at all. In a rural area, why pay regional councillors for the borders a salary for dealing with 97,000 people and yet pay district councillors in an area like Angus and Kincardine, with almost the same population, nothing. It is much easier to arrange for payment by category of authority.
My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) said that there was a rumour of payments of £14 and £12—

Mr. Lambie: It has been stated in the House that these figures are only rumours, but they are the actual figures. The Government are arguing about the date of their application—whether they should be applied now or on 1st January next year. These are not rumours.

Mr. Mackintosh: Let us assume that they are the correct figures. It has not been explained how they are to apply and how much work will have to be done to qualify for them. However, if the Government have the opportunity through this system of paying councillors £3,500 I can bet my bottom dollar that the Secretary of State would accept the amendment providing for £2,000 and he would be clutched by the Treasury and kissed on both cheeks tomorrow. I doubt whether that is a possible explanation. We are arguing not for clocking up £3,500 by constant attendance and spreading the job day by day but for the security of a proper salary for a job well done. The proposal is clear-cut. I hope that every hon. Member who has been strong enough to speak in the debate—supported by the Scottish community, the local authorities and the Wheatley Commission—will vote for it tonight.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: With the leave of the House, I should like to clarify two points. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) said that rates


had been decided upon for England and that there had been reports that an attendance payment of £14 for counties and £12 for districts had been decided for England. But there is no basis for the reports which have been circulating. I can assure the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) that it is definitely not proposed that attendance allowances in Scotland should be less than in England and Wales.

Dr. M. S. Miller: The relevant part of the Bill concerning allowances is Clause 45. Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the council will be responsible—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not believe the hon. Member is confining his question to the clause which is before the House.

Dr. Miller: The new clause relates to Clause 45, which concerns allowances to members of local authorities. I want to know who is responsible for determination. Is it the local authority or the Government, because the section does not make it clear'? Subsection (3) says:
The amount of any allowance determined by a local authority".
Is it the amount that is determined or is it the principle in paying the allowance which is determined?

Mr. Campbell: I dealt with this earlier. It is explained in the clause. It is an amount which can be decided by the council.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 163, Noes 169.

Division No. 158.]
AYES
[6.7 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Fool, Michael
Marquand, David


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Ford, Ben
Meacher, Michael


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Freeson, Reginald
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Armstrong, Ernest
Gilbert, Dr. John
Mikardo, Ian


Ashton, Joe
Golding, John
Millan, Bruce


Atkinson, Norman
Gourlay, Harry
Miller, Dr. M. S.


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton
Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Moyle, Roland


Bidwell, Sydney
Hardy, Peter
Murray, Ronald King


Booth, Albert
Harper, Joseph
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael


Boothroyd, Miss B.
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Oakes, Gordon


Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Horam, John
O'Halloran, Michael


Bradley, Tom
Huckfield, Leslie
O'Malley, Brian


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Orbach, Maurice


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Orme, Stanley


Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Oswald, Thomas


Buchan, Norman
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Hunter, Adam
Paget, R. T.


Carmichael, Neil
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Palmer, Arthur


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
John, Brynmor
Pavitt, Laurie


Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Perry, Ernest G.


Coleman, Donald
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Radice, Giles


Concannon, J. D.
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)
Kaufman, Gerald
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Crawshaw, Richard
Kelley, Richard
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Cronin, John
Kerr, Russell
Rose, Paul B.


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Kinnock, Neil
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Dalyell, Tarn
Lambie, David
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Lamborn, Harry
Short, Rt.Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Davidson, Arthur
Lamond, James
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Latham, Arthur
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Lawson, George
Sillars, James


Deakins, Eric
Leadbitter, Ted
Silverman, Julius


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Leonard, Dick
Skinner, Dennis


Dempsey, James
Lestor, Miss Joan
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Doig, Peter
Lipton, Marcus
Spearing, Nigel


Dormand, J. D.
Lomas, Kenneth
Stallard, A. W.


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Loughlin, Charles
Steel, David


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
MacArthur, Ian
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Duffy, A. E. P.
McBride, Neil
Storehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Eadie, Alex
McCartney, Hugh
Stott, Roger


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
McElhone, Frank
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Ellis, Tom
Machin, George
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)




Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Evans, Fred
Mackenzie, Gregor
Tinn, James


Ewing, Harry
Mackie, John
Torney, Tom


Fisher, Mrs. Doris(B'ham, Ladywood)
Mackintosh, John P.
Varley, Eric G.


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Maclennan, Robert
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Wallace, George


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Watkins, David




Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Mr. Walter Harrison and Mr. James Hamilton.


Whitehead, Phillip
Woof, Robert





NOES


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Green, Alan
Neave, Airey


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Grylls, Michael
Normanton, Tom


Atkins, Humphrey
Gummer, J. Selwyn
Nott, John


Awdry, Daniel
Gurden, Harold
Onslow, Cranley


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Bell, Ronald
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)


Benyon, W. R.
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Parkinson, Cecil


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Haselhurst, Alan
Percival, Ian


Biffen, John
Havers, Sir Michael
Pink, R. Bonner


Biggs-Davison, John
Hicks, Robert
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Body, Richard
Hornby, Richard
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn. Dame Patricia
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Bossom, Sir Clive
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Raison, Timothy


Bowden, Andrew
Iremonger, T. L.
Redmond, Robert


Braine, Sir Bernard
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Bray, Ronald
James, David
Rost, Peter


Brewis, John
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Jessel, Toby
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Jopling, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Kershaw, Anthony
Shersby, Michael


Buck, Antony
Kimball, Marcus
Simeons, Charles


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Skeet, T. H. H.


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Kirk, Peter
Soref, Harold


Carlisle, Mark
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Speed, Keith


Channon, Paul
Knox, David
Spence, John


Chapman, Sydney
Lamont, Norman
Sproat, Iain


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Lane, David
Stanbrook, Ivor


Chichester-Clark, R.
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Le Marchant, Spencer
Stokes, John


Clegg, Walter
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Cockeram, Eric
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Sutcliffe, John


Coombs, Derek
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Tapsell, Peter


Cordle, John
McCrindle, R. A.
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)


Crouch, David
McLaren, Martin
Tebbit, Norman


d'Avigdor- Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Dean, Paul
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Maddan, Martin
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Dixon, Piers
Madel, David
Tilney, John


Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Mather, Carol
Tugendhat, Christopher


Drayson, G. B.
Maude, Angus
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Dykes, Hugh
Mawby, Ray
Waddington, David


Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Eyre, Reginald
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Ward, Dame Irene


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Miscampbell, Norman
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Wiggin, Jerry


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Moate, Roger
Wilkinson, John


Fookes, Miss Janet
Money, Ernie
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Fortescue, Tim
Monro, Hector
Worsley, Marcus


Fowler, Norman
Montgomery, Fergus
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Fox, Marcus
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Younger, Hn. George


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gower, Raymond
Mudd, David
Mr. Paul Hawkins and Mr. Kenneth Clarke.


Gray, Hamish
Murton, Oscar




Nabarro, Sir Gerald

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 8

FINANCES OF COMMUNITY COUNCILS

(1) Community councils may accept by way of money or otherwise, and may raise by loan or otherwise, hold and use, finances for their purposes as set out in subsection (2) of Section 51 above.

(2) District councils shall make such contributions to community councils within their areas as will enable these community councils to provide the staff, services, accommodation, furniture and equipment which seem necessary

to meet their reasonable requirements. Such contributions may be in terms of payment or, by agreement between the councils concerned, in other form.

(3) Without prejudice to the provisions in subsection (2) above, regional, islands and district councils, as seems to them reasonable, may make contributions towards the expenses of community councils within their areas and may make loans to those councils.—[Mr. Hugh D. Brown.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With the clause we are to consider the following amendments:

No. 250, in Clause 51, page 27, line 19, at end insert:
'(3) A community council shall be entitled to such annual requisition from rates within its area as the Secretary of State may by order under this section determine'.

No. 251, in page 27, line 19, at end insert:
'(3) A community council shall employ whatever staff it deems necessary to carry out its functions'.

No. 252, in page 27, line 19, at end insert:
'(3) A community council shall have the duty to administer those matters within its area which from time to time the Secretary of State may by order under this section determine'.

No. 230, in page 29, line 27, leave out Clause 55.

No. 256, in Clause 85, page 45, line 19, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 257, in Clause 88, page 46, line 23, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 258, in page 46, line 31, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 259, in Clause 89, page 47, line 1, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 260, in Clause 90, page 47, line 10, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 261, in Clause 91, page 47, line 26, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 262, in page 48, line 2, after 'authority', insert 'or community council'.

No. 263, in page 48, line 19, after 'councils', insert 'and community councils'.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Brown: I am aware that we had reasonably adequate discussions in Committee about the whole principle of community councils.
The clause is intended to replace Clause 55. That clause, which has a permissive approach, says:
Regional, islands and district councils may make such contributions as they think fit…

may make loans to those councils and may, at the request of such community councils, provide them with staff, services
and so on.
The new clause says that district authorities "shall" make financial provisions for the functions that the commiunity councils can carry out, which are specified in Clause 51(2). It also adds a new principle, that regional authorities may make contributions to community councils.
The principles behind these two new ideas are self-evident. There has been a tremendous interest in community councils, and the Government have responded to some extent, recognising that there must be a counter to the argument about remoteness. I do not entirely agree that that argument is well founded, but if people feel that there is a danger of remoteness under the new set-up, community councils can make a substantial contribution towards enabling them to have some participation and the right to express themselves.
The extent of community councils' functions is well set out in Clause 51(2). I am sure that in his reply the Minister will quote something that I have said. He has done it already, but it is not fair, because it refers to the seeking of information. I am not trying to run away from the fact that I certainly favour voluntary co-operation even in financial matters.
It might help if we could firm up Clause 55. I do not think that there is much between us. By accepting New Clause 8 we would probably firm up Clause 55. It does not specify amounts. It seems to raise none of the horrors which the Minister presented to us in Committee. Such as making a statutory organisation.
I do not think that any of the things are involved about which the hon. Gentleman was so worried. It does not seem unreasonable that we should strengthen that idea by putting an obligation on the district authorities to supply funds.
I hope that those remarks take the argument a little further. By introducing the new clause I am not being dogmatic. I am making a genuine attempt to ensure the success of the community councils


I hope that the new clause will be accepted.

Mr. Grimond: I shall speak to amendments Nos. 250 to 252, No. 230 and Nos. 256 to 263.

Mr. Mackintosh: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us the page numbers? It is difficult to follow when amendments are not in consecutive order.

Mr. Grimond: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is listening carefully. The first group relate to page 1039 and then the next group related to pages 1043 and 1044. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is with us now.

Mr. Mackintosh: As long as the right hon. Gentleman knows where he is.

Mr. Grimond: Wait and see, as Asquith said. The amendments are designed to strengthen the hands of the community councils. Opinion has moved considerably since the Wheatley report. I do not blame Wheatley for that. While at the time of Wheatley there was a feeling that technological advance meant that we could always have larger authorities, there is now a considerable feeling that in many ways smaller communities have more reality and that people can identify more readily with them than some of the large authorities.
I do not believe that we can impose the same pattern of local government all over Scotland. If we accept the main provision of the Bill, I do not see that the Strathclyde area is the same type authority as most of the other authorities in the Bill. Therefore, we should not treat county councils in the same way in all the regions.
I shall direct my remarks to the situation in my constituency and those like it. In the islands the community councils have a much larger part to play than have the councils on the mainland. Clearly the islands are separate communities. They often feel that the county capital is in some degree remote from them. Many islands have affairs to deal with which may differ from other islands in the same group and which can best be carried on locally.
As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) said,

Clause 55 makes it permissive for the regional and island area councils to provide the county councils with money, staff, accommodation and other matters. I do not believe that the councils will feel that they are being taken seriously nor do I believe that they will attract the right kind of people. That will not be the position, at least in the islands, unless they have a right to their own finance, staff and premises.
The Secretary of State said that he regards one of the major functions, if not the major function, of the community councils to make representations to the next tier. Obviously on many occasions such representations will be directed to the area councils or regional councils. Community councils may challenge their policies. Community councils will be encouraged to carry on a dialogue. It should not be made difficult for them to criticise the next tier. Does it make sense if, in trying to fulfil that job, they are to be dependent on the very bodies which they are criticising?
Throughout the whole of British history we have been trying to keep Parliament free from dependence on the good will of the Crown and yet we are now setting up bodies whose main function will be to criticise regional policy. At the same time they are to be dependent entirely, when dealing with staff and finance, on regional authorities. It is clear that they must have staff and finance. They must have secretaries and there must be some continuity. They must have people to write minutes, to write letters and to draw up agenda. Therefore, they must have finance.
Community councils should also have some powers. I do not think that we shall get people to serve on community councils unless they have some useful part to play in the community. I am sure that islands' functions are much better carried on at a local level than, for example, from Lerwick or Kirkwall, which are a long way away and across the sea. I shall not talk about Hoy, but similar considerations apply.
There are two strong arguments. First, the community councils should be able to play a useful part in the community. In that way people will be prepared to serve and more life and strength will be given to the councils to carry on a


dialogue with their superiors. Therefore, they must have staff, money and powers. The Secretary of State is well aware that this is the view of everyone on the existing district councils in my constituency. The district councils of Shetland sent in a petition, as did many of the district councils of Orkney, all expressing the same view. The Federation of Highlands and Islands Councils of Social Service has written to me. It says that
the Federation believes that Part IV on Community Councils would be greatly strengthened by giving these councils guaranteed finance
—that is not permissive finance—
and the right of consultation by local authorities.
It is not absolutely clear that the authorities need to take any notice of what they think. The letter continues:
All the delegates believed that, in a region such as the Highlands and Islands, Community Councils would have a very important part to play in the future of these areas, considering that, because of large distances, the regions and districts would hardly reach grass roots level.
6.30 p.m.
The Secretary of State, in long correspondence with me—I thank him for his trouble—has advanced various arguments against this view. One of these arguments is that such an authority would in most cases not have the resources to carry out the full range of district council responsibilities. But if such a council has the resources, I see no reason why it should not carry out the responsibilities of a local district authority. Even if the authorities in Orkney and Shetland are small, they are nevertheless viable and efficient.
The right hon. Gentleman's other main argument is that he does not want to create a third tier of local authorities. But he would not be doing so in Orkney and Shetland. As I pointed out earlier, it is absurd to pretend that Orkney and Shetland is the same sort of local authority as Strathclyde. We should be able to differentiate between them. I believe that the Western Isles are probably in the same situation as my constituency. Altogether, there is a most powerful argument for giving to these community councils extra power.
The second group of amendments deals with the rights of community councils to take part in various activities. For ex-

ample, Clause 51(2) says that a community council may pursue certain activities, including the ascertaining and co-ordination of the views of its community and conveying those views to the district authority. I am not sure whether this is enough. It is one thing to be able to write to a local authority, but quite another to be able to ensure that it takes action. What is even more to the point is that the community council should be able to participate in certain local activities in its own area.
I give a concrete example in this context—the Island of Hoy. I must declare my interest. The owner of the northern part of Hoy is anxious to make over his property to the public but is not sure how to do it. My wife is engaged in setting up an organisation to assist in the process. It is wholly desirable that the community council should be associated with this matter and it should have the right to appoint people to the organisation. Indeed, it could be argued that it ought to be able to take over the property, but at least it should have power to appoint people to speak for it and to take part in running the property. I do not think that this Bill enables it to do so.
Under Clauses 88, 89, 90 and 91 the local authorities are given power to encourage recreational activities, make adequate provision for social, cultural and recreational activities and—in Clause 90—to
provide, or encourage any other person or body to provide, facilities for recreation, conferences, trade fairs and exhibitions or improve, or encourage any other person or body, any existing facilities for those purposes.
This is the sort of activity which in some parts of Scotland, particularly in my constituency, ought to be much encouraged. I want to see local people associated, for example, with the National Trust of Scotland and many other bodies in promoting such activities. As I understand it, the community council of Hoy could not even set up a kiosk for information, although it might possibly be able to appoint people to any body which is to look after Hoy—for example, in promoting exhibitions or the tourist trade—and I see no reason why it should not do so. There is need for local people to be encouraged to do this sort of thing. That would make sense. If the duty is thrown, however,


upon the the island's area council and it has to appoint to local activities of this sort, such activities will in effect be removed from the local ambit.
I do not want to exaggerate the case but, for example, officials of Lerwick and Kirkwall can visit certain place only at certain times of the year. That applies to many of the islands. There is no reason to suppose that an area council for the islands will do the job any better than the community councils could do. I am strongly in favour of giving these extra powers, in my constituency at any rate, to community councils, and of firming up Clause 55 and ensuring that they have right to staff and finances making them independent of the district councils in providing these services.

Mr. Mackintosh: As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said, the new clause and the amendments deal with the firming up of the financial and other powers of community councils. Not only in the islands but in other parts of Scotland, such as the Borders, there are small burghs and villages with a long tradition of running their own civic weeks, for example, or common ridings or miners' galas—indeed, activities of all kinds.
When we have asked the Government what is to happen when a large amorphous nondescript district takes over from four or five small burgh authorities very active in community life, we have been told that the community councils will be able to carry on with such activities, but it is not clear in the Bill that that is so. It is not clear that they will have such powers, although statements by the Government have occasionally indicated that it is in their minds that they should. By their representational function the community councils would he allowed to run things with a community interest, but if they are do to so they must be allowed to hold and to have funds and, in some cases at least, to have a limited amount of staff.
Community activities are becoming more and more important nowadays. With remoteness from the centre of power, the feeling of community is, I believe, becoming more intense. Community councils can help to keep the

spirit of community activities alive. I wonder whether I would carry the Secretary of state with me in my alarm about Clause 51, dealing with community councils. It states specifically that schemes for the establishment of community councils shall be submitted to the Secretary of State before 16th May 1976. I was doubtful about the date, and put down an amendment, which was not selected.
Small burghs in my constituency run common ridings, miners' galas, fishermen's festivals and so on, but those burgh authorities will cease to exist in 1975. Will there be a year's hiatus when no one will have power to do this sort of thing? Many of these activities have been running for a very long time but could well lapse in the transitional period. I see no reason why there should be a gap of a whole year after the ending of the old system and the beginning of the new.
I am constantly being asked in my constituency, "How are we sure that our local activities will continue?" I have to reply that, according to the Bill, the scheme for the community council to take over from the burgh authority of Duns, for example—as with other small burghs in my constituency—its activities and life in a community sense will not necessarily be approved until 1976 and will not begin until the latter half of 1976 or even until summer 1977.
If small burghs cease to exist at the end of 1975, why cannot we get schemes for community councils going during the succeeding transitional year so that there is no break and no hiatus? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that this is a sensible new clause which would firm up the powers of the community councils where there is a lively community spirit. At least we should allow for schemes proposed prior to the demise of the existing burghs to be able to carry on when those burghs cease to exist so that there is no break on continuity and no hiatus.

Mr. David Steel: I hope that the Government will be willing to accept either the new clause or some of the amendments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) made an important point when he said that one rôle which we see for the


community councils is that of making constructive criticism and comment to the statutory authorities on behalf of the communities in their area. As long as we leave it in tale Bill that any possible finance for the community councils is entirely dependent on the good will of these authorities, then there is an imbalance which is likely to create trouble in future.
It is significant that the bodies which have written to Members making representations calling for increased powers for the community councils are such stimulating bodies in the local community as the Council of Social Service, the Women's Rural Institutes—organisations which are occasionally able to grapple with community problems but do not have the statutory recognition which a community council could have under the Bill.
When I say "criticism and comment" I do not mean that this is to be an obstructive process. One useful purpose for a community council would be to draw to the attention of the statutory authorities cases of individual grievance within a community. For example, St. Anndrew's House has been pumping out circulars about the provision that local authorities are making for the disabled. Could not the community councils act as a watchdog, dealing with specific instances in their communities which they will know about because they are closer to the community level than the new authorities?
Could such councils not pressurise the statutory authorities on such matters as including in their housing stocks sufficient houses for the disabled or providing particular facilities for a disabled person known to be in that community? All of these functions are important and it is necessary to go beyond the discretion established in the Bill for the statutory authorities to give cash if they feel so inclined to the community councils.
The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) made a valid point about the sort of festivities which take place in the Border areas. It is a common practice for each individual Border common riding to have its own constitution and traditions, no two of which are exactly the same.
One fairly common feature is that the present town councils supply something

from the rates towards these festivities. While it is true that the new district councils proposed in the Bill may continue to do this, it would be far more satisfactory if there were a clear rating authority based on the community and able to raise the relatively small sums of money required for this purpose.
There is also a need for community councils in areas other than those which have councils that are to be abolished. I am thinking of the large villages in remote parts of my constituency. They complain to me that even under the existing county council scheme their needs are neglected. They say that they want things such as a children's playground and that, short of the usual evening concerts and jumble sales and so on, they cannot raise the money for it. If they are to be encouraged to form community councils they should have as of right a certain amount of money and staff allocated to them. I hope that the Government will say that they have re-thought this subject since Committee stage and that we do not hear the arguments which were advanced then advanced again, as happened in the last debate.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: I support the new clause. Hon. Members have been speaking mainly about the Border areas and the Islands where, perhaps, communities lend themselves more appropriately to the formation of community councils. However, the need is no less great in the cities. While there is an overall city community, there is a community within that community. For example, in Glasgow there are the people who belong to Clydeside and the people who belong to Maryhill. Last week there was what is known as "Maryhill Week" which dealt, among other things, with the history of the formation of Maryhill. The local authority formed ward committees, not of a political character but of a community character. They were manned by people irrespective of religion or politics.
In a circular issued by the Government in 1972 it was said that the district authority should take the initiative and suggest areas for draft schemes. They would then be published, and put up for criticism and comment by the local


people. The deficiency here has to do with the financing. How is it proposed that the money should be raised? It is all very well saying, as the circular says, that they would be open to receive donations. The circular does not say from whom.
There may be some individuals who have pride in their community and would make bequests and so on. That has happened, but private patronage has largely disappeared. It is to the public authorities that we have to look for such financial support. The Government can encourage the communities in the cities as well as the communities elsewhere by giving us more information.

Mr. Younger: As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) said, we had a long discussion in Committee about the principle of community councils and we also covered in some detail the point raised by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) about the length of time specified in the Bill for the new schemes to come into operation. I do not blame anyone for not having picked up the references in the Committee proceedings. I shall be pleased to provide those references later.
There is nothing between the two sides of the House on the importance of community councils, the importance of the rôle we wish to assign to them and the desirability of attracting people to take part in their activities. What is at issue, apart from the point about finance and other duties that may be suggested for them, is what type of body we wish the community council to be. We have to decide this, as Wheatley had to decide it. We have to decide the ideal rôle for the community council—whether it is to be a third tier of local government, or, in the case of the island areas, a second tier. It might have been decided that the community councils should have statutory funds and duties, should carry out their duties in the same way as a local authority does, operating as a local authority with different types of function. We, the Wheatley Commission, and many others considering local government reform, decided against that form of organisation. We decided against it because we did not believe that the job that it is most

important for the community council to do could be done if it were shackled with statutory finance, statutory duties and statutory obligations, as is a local authority.
We went into this in detail in Committee, where I described the effect of giving statutory finance to a community council by saying that it would bring the community council into the whole gamut of public expenditure control, official audit and national views being taken on whether public funds were being properly or improperly spent. We need to think hard about whether we want our community councils to be small and local to the communities or whether we want to bring them into the statutory business of being local authorities.

Mr. Grimond: They have some finance now. Does anyone ever interfere with them? Do we have debates in the House about whether Hoy District Council is using its finances properly? We must get used to providing finance for opposition. We pay the Leader of the Opposition, rightly, and we can no longer pretend that a body which gets finance from the Exchequer must necessarily conform to the policy of the Exchequer.

Mr. Younger: I apologise for not making myself clear. I am not referring to district councils.

Mr. Grimond: No, the present councils.

Mr. Younger: I am referring to the future community councils. I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says. District councils at present have such finance and are a tier of local government. I am suggesting that community councils in future should not be like that but should be different bodies which should not have to answer to the House—

Mr. Grimond: I know that is what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but in my constituency a community council in some respects could be treated as a successor to the district council. I am all in favour of giving community councils new powers of representation and argument and I am also in favour of their keeping some of the existing powers. It was in that regard that I was likening their position to that of the existing district councils.

Mr. Younger: I entirely take the right hon. Gentleman's point. He is suggesting that the community councils in his area should not be of the type which I am suggesting for the rest of Scotland but should be organised differently. That is a perfectly fair view to hold and we can discuss that later. At this stage we are discussing whether the community councils suggested in the Bill should have a statutory right to finance and whether statutory duties should be thrust upon them.
If we make community councils into full-scale third tier local authority we shall be creating an entirely different sort of council from that which Wheatley had in mind and which we have had in mind in all our considerations.
It must be remembered that if community councils are put into the local government framework and are affected by all these statutory provisions there will arise the usual questions about the interpretation of local government law. If a power is not specifically given to a local government body it is assumed that it has not got that power—the ultra vires rule. If the community council were put into this position it would be inhibited in small, irritating and maddening ways from doing what it wants to do by the fact that people would be able to haul it up on the ground that it was exceeding its powers, because what it wanted to do was not specifically stated.
It is of fundamental importance to the whole concept of community councils that we should leave them free to do what their local communities wish to do, and that they shall not be continually hauled up against the stops of whether they are allowed to do things by statute. For these reasons we have left the provisions for community councils flexible and broad and not tied to specific finance, specific authority or specific powers and duties.
The effect of the clause is to remove Clause 55 which provides that regional, islands and district councils may contribute towards the cost of community councils and to substitute for it a new clause which does three things. It empowers community councils to accept, raise and hold finances. It requires district councils to contribute as necessary to provide community councils within their areas with staff, services and

accommodation. Also it enables regional, islands and district councils to make contributions and loans to community councils.
The amendments raise the issue which we debated in Committee of compulsory assistance to community councils, to be provided either by means of a statutory right to assistance towards staff costs and accommodation or by a power to requisition on rates. That is at variance with what I have described as the concept of community councils and I ask the House to look at the practical difficulties.
Suppose we encouraged a district council to lay down a specific proportion of the rates to be given to community councils. That would immediately raise all sorts of problems as to how much, whether it should be the same amount for all community councils, what would happen about community councils that did little and amassed a lot of money which they received as of right without question, and what would happen about a community council that had a tremendous task to perform—such as that mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. William Hannan)—and not enough money to pay for it. As for different rates for different councils, the complexities would be tremendous and I do not think we can embark upon that.
The clause does not go quite as far as that. It specifies generally some benefits which community councils could get. We have given careful consideration to the suggestions of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan and to the many representations that have been made to us by the Scottish Council of Social Service and others, but we remain firmly of the view that it would fundamentally alter the concept of community councils if they had statutory rights even of the kind mentioned in the clause.
The key point is that, while it is appropriate for all local authority or similar bodies that have statutory duties to carry out to have a corresponding statutory right to finance for the performance of their duties, a community council does not have such statutory duties and consequently has no entitlement to such financial help. It is of the essence of our concept of the community council that its duties and responsibilities


should be determined by the local community itself, not imposed from a central source. Accordingly, while it is right that community councils should be able to raise, hold and spend money for whatever purpose they think fit, it would not be right to give them the power to receive money or other help as of right, either from central government or from local authorities.
Amendment No. 251 requires a community council to employ as many staff as it considers necessary to carry out its functions. I suggest that that amendment is not strictly necessary. Community councils are entirely free agents. No restrictions are imposed upon what they may do, the staff they may employ or the methods by which they may raise funds. It will be for the community, represented by the council, to decide for itself what tasks it wishes the council to undertake, and the staffing requirements. so that the council will need to be tailored accordingly. I do not see how the amendment would add to the powers of community councils to do this. The word "shall", which implies a statutory duty, is inappropriate in the case of a body which does not have statutory functions and the activities of which are to be determined by itself and not laid down by someone else.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Grimond: The people who will determine whether North Ronaldsay employs staff is the whole community of Orkney. In the islands the local community is the whole community of the island, and it has no powers under the Bill unless the higher authority provides it with money to get staff.

Mr. Younger: Without accepting the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's description of "higher authority", that is more or less a correct description. The schemes that are envisaged for setting up community councils allow for the district council to draw up a scheme which will then be publicly advertised, discussed and objected to if necessary before being submitted for approval to the Secretary of State. The right hon. Gentleman is worried about what will happen in his own area, and I presume that the all-purpose or most-purpose authority in Orkney and Shetland would draw up a

scheme in just such a way as I have described, advertise it and discuss it, and submit it to the Secretary of State for his consideration. Those are the major steps to be gone through, and I am certain that the people of Hoy, for example, will be sufficiently well equipped to make their views known to those drawing up the areas and to make sure that if they do not get their way in the first instance, a powerful case is made of it.
I urge the House to think carefully, and I hope that this will be taken as a genuine point about which we ought to think carefully. I hope that we shall not let our enthusiasm to help the community councils get off the ground and to encourage these many excellent people who take a lively interest in the formation of community councils lead to a form of organisation which will make their job more difficult eventually.
If we were to impose statutory duties on these councils and to give them the statutory right to finance, we should bring them inevitably into the local government system, whether or not they or we wanted it or whether or not Wheatley wanted it. We should land them with unnecessary administrative problems and restrictions on what they would be able to do which they would not want in future and which we do not want now. In our enthusiasm to help, we should be careful.

Mr. Norman Buchan: Surely central and local government give funds to all sorts of local bodies, including amenity and civic bodies and the Arts Council. Would it inevitably link the community councils with part of local government?

Mr. Younger: There is nothing to prevent a district council giving funds to a community council to take part in some task for which the district council is basically responsible. Some of the instances given by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) of tasks which he would have thought appropriate for a community council are matters which I should expect it was probable that the district councils might ask the community councils to do. If that is so, there is no reason why finance


could not be given by the district council to the community council to perform those tasks—and it obviously would be. But we should not lay a statutory duty on the community councils. If we did, they would be brought right into public audit and public accountability for the money that they spent. What is more, they would be prevented from extending their rôle by the ultra vires rule.

Mr. Grimond: This is a strange situation. This Bill was in Committee for a very long time, yet apparently the Government still do not know the effect of Clauses 88, 89 and 91. If these clauses do not mean what they say, they should not be in the Bill. If they do not confer a right on local authorities which they would not have otherwise, the Government should assure us that they do not exclude other authorities from doing these things. If one local authority needs explicit authority to carry out these duties, so will any other authority. I should like some assurance that the Government have the powers specified in Clauses 88, 89 and 91.

Mr. Younger: That is a tall order to answer off the cuff. The right hon. Gentleman asks a great deal if he expects me to look through all these provisions and assure him that everything could be done by a community council. I should have thought that that was the position. But I shall look into it most carefully and see whether I can give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance.

Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman seems to be resting his case on the assertion that it would be wrong to impose a duty on the community council which resulted in its being answerable to public audit and the like. As I read the clause, it does not seek to impose any duty on the community council. Under subsection (2) it seeks to impose a duty on the district council which is already answerable under the terms of the Bill. Under subsections (1) and (3) it seeks simply to make a permissive arrangement for the community council to accept funds. I cannot understand how the hon. Gentleman draws the conclusion that he does from these permisive subsections.

Mr. Younger: If I say a brief word about the detail in the clause, perhaps

that will answer the hon. Gentleman's points. Subsection (1) merely sets out a power which community councils can already exercise and which does not need spelling out in detail. The nature of a community council is such that it can hold either money or property without the need for statutory warrant. I suggest that this subsection is not necessary.
Subsection (2) would require district councils to contribute either in cash or in kind towards the staff and accommodation needs of community councils in their areas. Apart from being subject to the same objection as the previous subsection, this is also open to the criticism that the district council must contribute so much as will enable the community council to provide the staff, services, accommodation, etc., which seem necessary to meet its reasonable requirements. The clause does not specify who is to be the judge of the necessary amount or of what are reasonable requirements, nor is provision made for arbitration in the case of disagreement. So, although it is quite desirable, it does not take us very much further.

Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman has really conceded my point. Subsection (2) does not impose any kind of mandatory obligation on the community council of such a kind which would render it liable to be regarded as the third tier of local government which has been the foundation of the hon. Gentleman's attack on the motion.

Mr. Younger: Taken by themselves, I do not think that the two subsections do this. But I am anxious that we should not do anything which would strictly make a change in the position. I am also anxious that we should not write more definition into what is to be required of community councils than is absolutely unavoidable. The more that we do that, the more the danger that at some time they will want to do something and someone will decide that they cannot do it. The whole concept of commuity councils is that they should be left as free of detailed specification of what they can do as possible. That is the passport to them to do the work which their commuities may ask them to do.

Mr. Mackintosh: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm the point made in Committee that it will be possible to establish


and start the operation of these community councils as from the last day of the existence of the burghs from which they will take over?

Mr. Younger: Without going into all the detail that I went into in Committee, I cannot answer that point satisfactorily. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman wants to try to avoid a gap between the present authorities and the community councils. Perhaps I might refer him to our discussion of this matter in Committee. We went into it in great detail. The sheer time needed does not make it possible to do everything by this date. The new authorities will be elected in May 1974. It will take them at least a month or two to get their offices set up and their organisations in being. Then there will be the summer holidays. There are various stages involved. Even supposing that they had nothing else to do than draw up community councils, it would be very hard to fit everything in. My own initial reaction was the same as the hon. Gentleman's. However I shall write to him about it. Having looked at the matter I cannot see a way of doing it any quicker. If the hon. Gentleman can suggest a way, I shall be glad to hear it.

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman cannot leave it there. He has admitted that there will be this gap. How will it be filled? It will be detrimental to the accepted annual celebrations of many communities.

Mr. Younger: The detail of how any function at present carried on by an existing local authority—the right hon. Gentleman may be referred to common ridings and so on—

Mr. Ross: They have them in Ayrshire too, do they?

Mr. Younger: Yes. The detail as to what is to happen in the interim is a matter which could be gone into in each case. But I cannot see a way of going through the procedure of drawing up community council schemes within a quicker time scale than that which has been laid down. If the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian can persuade me otherwise, I shall be extremely pleased. But I do not think that it is practicable. As for carrying on in the interim. I do not doubt that those in

the localities will find ways and means. But I am prepared to listen hard to any points made to me.

Mr. Neil Carmichael: We are disappointed by the Minister's handling of New Clause 8.
Perhaps I might first mention the very important matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) about common ridings, Lanimer Days, and so on. In Committee, when we discussed the timing of community councils and when they could be set up, we did not give sufficient consideration to this gap. We were all taken up with the time of setting up the community councils.
When the Minister spoke in Committee about the problems of setting up community councils, he drew attention to a number of great difficulties. While it may be difficult to get the community councils off the ground and, as matters stand, apparently impossible to ensure that these special ancient celebrations go on in our Scottish towns, nevertheless some effort should be made to ask the regional councils or district councils for an interim period. It may take more than one year. In many instances there may be more than a one-year gap. could not the Under-Secretary use his good offices, perhaps in the other place, to include a provision to empower the district councils to carry on these functions for at least one or two years in order to allow the gap to be bridged? We are upsetting local government so much that it would be wrong not to take every opportunity to try to encourage anything that could be done in this respect.
7.15 p.m.
The Minister made very heavy weather of the clause. I do not understand why he finds it so difficult. The only point of substance that he put forward against the wording of the clause was that there would perhaps be a necessity for arbitration to decide what staff would be necessary and what the reasonable requirements would be. I cannot understand how he sees in this any statutory duties.
As many hon. Members have said, if we are to have community councils they must have staff. The staff may be meagre. It may be only one person is


necessary. One difficulty is that the Government have not been forthcoming on what they mean by "community councils". There are difficulties. However, they have not, for instance, said that the city of Glasgow would have one community council per ward or large single traditional area such as the old village of Glasgow, Govan, Maryhill or Bridgeton. They have never given any indication of what they mean by "community council". However, they have provided in other parts of the Bill that in certain areas the chairman of the community council will be able to use the regalia of the old royal burghs or burgh councils, the chains of office, and so on. The Government have been extremely coy about trying to explain what they mean by "community council". I accept that it is not easy to define a community council, because it will vary greatly from place to place. That is why the clause would take a certain amount of the flabbiness out of Clause 55 which it seeks to replace.
I ask the Minister to look at the clause again. He suggested that arbitration may be required—I do not think that is so—to decide what is necessary. Subsection (2) provides:
District councils shall make such contributions to community councils within their areas as will enable these community councils to provide the staff, services, accommodation. furniture and equipment which seem necessary to meet their reasonable requirements.
They must at least have that. We cannot expect a group of people to meet in the street and say, "Let us have a community council". Some provision must be made. Surely it would be better if that provision were made by the district council. In Committee it was suggested that there would be a number of surplus buildings in the new structure of local government which could profitably and properly be used by community councils. Everything is tied to reasonable requirements.
The subsection continues:
Such contributions may be in terms of payment or, by agreement between the councils concerned, in other form.
Clause 55 merely provides:
Regional, islands and district councils may make such contributions as they think fit towards the expenses of community councils".
We are asking for a little more substance for the community councils. We

are suggesting that they should be supplied with the bare necessities of life.
Everyone who has looked at the Bill with any attention has accepted that community councils are absolutely essential I suggest that unless we get community councils established the remoteness of local government will be even greater than it is now.
I ask the Minister to look at the matter again and to consider whether something on the lines of the clause might be put into the Bill when it goes to another place. We believe that the clause gives more substance to community councils without any statutory imposition. I do not see that it puts any statutory imposition on community councils. I doubt whether I should agree with statutory impositions being put on them. The clause could help to get community councils established without statutory impositions being put on them. I ask the Minister to accept the clause or to consider whether something to this effect might be put in the Bill in another place.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I felt apologetic in moving the clause. I had the impression that I had not said anything that was new. I made an attempt at digging up a couple of points, and I suggest, with natural modesty, that there is substance in the two points that I made. However, I have heard nothing new from the Government.
The Minister was regularly asked what he meant by "statutory authority", but he has not advanced one inch in explaining why a community council becomes some kind of statutory body when the obligation is placed on some other authority to give it money.
This point was brought out in Committee. I am sure that some of my hon. Friends will have read the debates in Committee, though I confess, listening to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), I have my doubts about him. He confused the issue by bringing in existing district councils. The amendments moved by Members of the Liberal Party refer only to the Islands or the Borders. The reference to district councils is confusing in this debate where we are dealing with a general principle applying to community councils in all authorities.
I do not see why I should come to the Government's rescue again. The Minister's performance was lamentable in the light of the specific questions put to him. I do not want to encourage my right hon Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) to get in on this one—he does not need any encouragement—but if the centenary of Darvel had been in June 1974, not June 1973, from where would the money have come? The answer is obvious. The old and the new authorities will be running side by side for a year and the money, if there is a desire for this commitment, would come from one or other or both.
It is the Minister's duty to satisfy us on this matter. In view of his inability to satisfy us we must try to puff up the future provisions of the Bill, vague as some may be. I have attempted to elicit information from the Government. For the benefit of some hon. Members, I should point out that Glasgow, that much maligned authority, has already given a firm commitment that it will encourage and finance community councils. If it can be done in Glasgow, what is to stop the Orkney County Council or the Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles County Council making that commitment now? False hopes can be raised. I am not trying to raise false hopes. There must be some desire by the local community or the proposal will not work.
I hope that the debate has been useful if only to put pressure on the Government. I ask the Minister—he does not have to do it now—to issue a circular recognising that there are tremendous differences in the needs of communities in Glasgow or Ayrshire compared with Orkney and Shetland. I am with the Liberals in spirit. They can find some way of voting on another amendment.
I believe that we are all generally agreed on the need for community councils, but, when we get down to the practicalities, no amount of money paid to any moribund organisation will make it successful.
This is the dilemma that we are all facing, and that includes the Government. It appears to me that the Government have not recognised the fact that their words could give encouragement to get this idea off the ground. The Govern-

ment do not want to instruct local authorities to do something. We have tried to find a middle way, perhaps not successfully in terms of the new clause, but I hope that what I am saying will be taken on board by the Minister. [Interruption.] I hope that my hon. Friends will not get carried away by my eloquence. It is not fair to press the matter to a Division.
There are genuine difficulties, and perhaps I may refer my hon. Friends to Clause 51(2) which says
and to take such action in the interests of that community as appears to it"—
that is to the community council, and not to any other authority—
to be expedient and practical.
The Minister and the Government have endorsed that view. I hope that that is the spirit in which we shall see community councils thrive, and woe-betide any district authority which attempts to deny community councils the resources and necessary finance to do an effective job. I cannot speak for the next Labour Government, but that is a commitment that could easily be given to ensure that community councils are not starved of resources if the demand is there. That is the spirit in which we approach the matter but, having said that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Mr. Ross: In view of the Minister's reply, I do not think it would be wise to allow my hon. Friend to withdraw the clause. The Government have said that they do not want to bring community councils into the ambit of local government, yet when we talk about local government and refer to the remoteness of the new district and regional authorities the Government tell us that there will be no difficulties because the community councils will be in operation.
Whether or not the Government like it, it is by the community councils that they are seeking to underpin local democracy and local participation. These community councils are in local government, and if we do not make a success of them things will be pretty serious in the years ahead.
I am surprised that my Liberal friends, and particularly the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond)


did not ask what would happen to the councils of social service after the community councils were established. The right hon. Gentleman knows that, apart from the money received locally by these councils, a considerable sum of money is provided by the Government, and no strings are attached to it. I remember certain publications issued by the councils social service being pretty hard on the Government and criticising them for what they had done. The hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) gets my point, and I welcome him to our debate.
What are the Government afraid of? The Under-Secretary of State said that the Government do not want to specify lest they limit these authorities, and that

if they take it unto themselves to demand money it will be forthcoming. I have read the new clause three or four times, and I listened carefully to the Minister's speech. I see no attempt to specify limits. I appreciate my hon. Friend's view. There would have been a different reaction if he had been speaking from the benches opposite. There is no confidence that these councils will get off the ground following the Minister's speech, and I therefore suggest that we press the matter to a Division.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 153, Noes 163.

Division No. 159.]
AYES
[7.29 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Oakes, Gordon


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Hardy, Peter
O'Halloran, Michael


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Harper, Joseph
O'Malley, Brian


Armstrong, Ernest
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Orbach, Maurice


Ashton, Joe
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Orme, Stanley


Atkinson, Norman
Horam, John
Oswald, Thomas


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Paget, R. T.


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Palmer, Arthur


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Pardoe, John


Bidwell, Sydney
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Pavitt, Laurie


Booth, Albert
Hunter, Adam
Perry, Ernest G.


Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Price, William (Rugby)


Bradley, Tom
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Radice, Giles


Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
John, Brynmor
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Buchan, Norman
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Robert, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Carmichael, Neil
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham,S.)
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Kaufman, Gerald
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)
Kelley, Richard
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Concannon, J. D.
Kerr, Russell
Sillars, James


Crawshaw, Richard
Kinnock, Neil
Silverman, Julius


Dalyell, Tam
Lamble, David
Skinner, Dennis


Davidson, Arthur
Lamborn, Harry
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Lamond, James
Spearing, Nigel


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Latham, Arthur
Stallard, A. W.


Deakins, Eric
Lawson, George
Steel, David


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Leadbitter, Ted
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Dempsey, James
Leonard, Dick
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Doig, Peter
Lestor, Miss Joan
Stott, Roger (Westhoughton)


Dormand, J. D.
Lipton, Marcus
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Lomas, Kenneth
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Loughlin, Charles
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Duffy, A. E. P.
McBride, Neil
Tinn, James


Eadie, Alex
McCartney, Hugh
Tope, Graham


Ellis, Tom
McElhone, Frank
Torney, Tom


Evans, Fred
Machin, George
Varley, Eric G.


Ewing, Harry
Mackenzie, Gregor
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)
Mackintosh, John P
Wallace, George


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Maclennan, Robert
Watkins, David


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McNamara, J. Kevin
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Foot, Michael
Marquand, David
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Ford, Ben
Meacher, Michael
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Freeson, Reginald
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Woof, Robert


Gilbert, Dr. John
Millan, Bruce



Golding, John
Miller, Dr. M. S.



Gourlay, Harry
Milne, Edward
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Mr. Donald Coleman and Mr. James Hamilton.


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)



Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Murray, Ronald King





NOES


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Green, Alan
Nott, John


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Grylls, Michael
Onslow, Cranley


Atkins, Humphrey
Gummer, J. Selwyn
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Gurden, Harold
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)


Bell, Ronald
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)


Benyon, W.
Haselhurst, Alan
Parkinson, Cecil


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hawkins, Paul
Percival, Ian


Biffen, John
Hicks, Robert
Pink, R. Bonner


Biggs-Davison, John
Hordern, Peter
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Hornby, Richard
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Body, Richard
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Raison, Timothy


Bossom, Sir Clive
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Redmond, Robert


Bowden, Andrew
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Brewis, John
Iremonger, T. L.
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Brinton, Sir Tatton
James, David
Rost, Peter


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Jessel, Toby
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Jopling, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Buck, Antony
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Kershaw, Anthony
Shersby, Michael


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Kimball, Marcus
Simeons, Charles


Carlisle, Mark
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Soref, Harold


Channon, Paul
Kirk, Peter
Speed, Keith


Chapman, Sydney
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Spence, John


Chichester-Clark, R.
Knox, David
Sproat, Iain


Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Lane, David
Stanbrook, Ivor


Clegg, Walte
La Marchant, Spencer
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Cockeram, Eric
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Stokes, John


Cooke, Robert
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Coombs, Derek
MacArthur, Ian
Sutcliffe, John


Cordle, John
McCrindle, R. A.
Tapsell, Peter


Cormack, Patrick
McLaren, Martin
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)


Crouch, David
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


d'Avlgdor- Goldsmid, Sir Henry
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Tebbit, Norman


Dean, Paul
Maddan, Martin
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Deedes, Rt. Hn w. F.
Madel, David
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Dixon, Piers
Mather, Carol
Tilney, John


Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Maude, Angus
Tugendhat, Christopher


Dykes, Hugh
Mawby, Ray
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J
Waddington, David


Emery, Peter
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Eyre, Reginald
Miscampbell, Norman
Ward, Dame Irene


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Moate, Roger
Wiggin, Jerry


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Money, Ernle
Wilkinson, John


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Monro, Hector
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Fookes, Miss Janet
Montgomery, Fergus
Worsley, Marcus


Fortescue, Tim
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Fowler, Norman
Morgan-Giles. Rear-Adm.
Younger, Hn. George


Fox, Marcus
Mudd, David
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Mr. Oscar Murton and


Gardner, Edward
Neave, Airey
Mr. Hamish Gray.


Gower, Raymond
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 9

REGISTER OF FINANCIAL INTERESTS

On election to an authority each member shall sign a register disclosing the full extent of all financial interests and the name and address of any company or organisation from which he receives remuneration of any kind, and any such register shall be open for inspection by any person, and where a member of an authority is an agent, representative, executive, director or shareholder in any commercial or industrial firm, that firm may not enter into any contractual arrangement with that authority.—[Mr. Buchan.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Buchan: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we are to take Government Amendments Nos. 66 and 81 and Amendment No. 67, in page 21, line 26, leave out local authority' and insert 'public'.

Mr. Buchan: I approve of the three amendments that are being attached to the new clause. They are minor, indeed minimal, but they help the situation and raise one of the points on which I wish to comment. This refers to the declaration of interest which has been discussed


on a number of occasions on the Floor of the House, in local authorities and within the various political parties. I make no apology for raising it again. Every hon. Member, being aware of the prevailing mood and climate in the country, will understand this. My first point concerns the wording of the clause itself.
I accept that this provision goes much further than most legislation so far on this subject, whether relating to members of local authorities or to Members of Parliament. A number of clauses in the Bill try to set down a modus operandi for dealing with this question in regard to voting. But the time has come properly to express what many people rightly feel about the responsibilities and duties of public representatives, so I make no apology for the toughness of the clause. At the same time, I recognise that there are some difficulties.
Those difficulties can be overcome if the Government are willing to accept the spirit and intention of the clause both in the first half, about a register of financial interests, and in the second half, which lays down what will happen when a particular kind of interest exists—that is to say, that a person must choose whether to represent an outside body or to speak for the public authority. If, in the process of choosing, he has to give up one or the other, this is the price that must be paid to ensure the health of the community.
The people of this country have the right to know. I guess that it is partial acceptance of this principle that has motivated the two minimal amendments put down by the Government and the amendment by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross)—that is, that the community has the right to know, when a public representative speaks or votes, what his other interests are.
I do not accept that there is an area of privacy here which is sacrosanct. The moment that a man puts himself forward for election to a public body, the boundary between his private interests and his public interests is in quite a different situation from those of other members of the community. So the community as a whole has a right to know the full interests of a member of a local authority or of Parliament.
I had to give up teaching when I became a Member of Parliament. A person who sees his primary interest as looking after his shareholders or being a director of a company should also make up his mind which he will represent. In other words, particularly for members of regional authorities, this should be a full-time job.
I cannot envisage a region of the size of Strathclyde being run by part-time regional councillors. I hope that we can return to this in the House of Lords. I regret bitterly the failure of the House to pass the clause which would have allowed the payment of regional councillors, in particular, on a full-time basis. Strathclyde is a region the size of Israel, with a population the size of Israel. It is a "State".
Without my proposal, one of two things will apply. The first is that the nature of the representatives will be very narrow. No one with an ordinary job could become a regional councillor; the work will be left to housewives, retired union officials and businessmen. This would be much more narrow than the obligation under my new clause to choose whether one wants to represent a business or a local authority. That would cut out far fewer people than an attempt to run a region like Strathclyde with part-time councillors.
The other possibility is that, if this work cannot be done by full-time, committed people, the councils will be run by officials. The purpose of our discussion on this and the previous new clause has been the extension of democracy. That is why I believe that the clause is right to give full expression to that democracy.
7.45 p.m.
The clause is being introduced against a particular background. I do not want to go into details of some of the material that has been filling the public columns in the Press month after month on the Poulson case. I know nothing of the case and nothing of the legalities or illegalities of anything that may have taken place. What concerns me is that this whole apparatus of part-time employment going to people because they are members of local authorities is evil and should be stopped. I rise the word "evil" rather than "illegal" because I


think that it is worse than being illegal. If something is illegal, we, not always too frequently, have to take legal measures to make it also illegal. That should be done in this case.
There are certain consequences of the prevailing climate in the country. One is seen in the kind of political malaise which may be expressed in the form of low voting figures or of condemnation or of a belief that "they are all the same". I do not believe that all public representatives are the same. I do not associate myself or anyone here or in most local authorities with some of the behaviour that has been outlined in recent months, but unless we ensure that that is made clear the mood that "they are all the same" will continue.
So this register is designed not merely to deal with the corrupt. It is even more important to protect the innocent and the good in local authorities, who are the vast bulk of local authority membership, so that this malaise has no longer any foundation in fact; society will have shown that it is prepared to deal with it.
The basic principle here is a generalised one. It should also be applied to Members of Parliament. What we have in mind here is in line with much of the current thinking, particularly in my party. I welcome the decision by the Conference of the Scottish Labour Party that such a register should be established of all Labour councillors and Members of Parliament, in which they would enter fully all their financial interests. I will fill mine in the moment that it arrives, and I hope that all my colleagues will do the same.
The principle that we are seeking to apply is that what is good enough for us to accept voluntarily should be good enough for all parties—in local authorities or in Parliament.

Mr. David Steel: The hon. Member knows that my party has taken some steps in this direction. Why does not his clause, which we certainly support, make any reference to officials in local government? Is it not important to extend the principle to them?

Mr. Buchan: Each man to his own amendment. I am concerned at this stage with the nature of democracy rather

than with the task of dealing with corruption. That is what is implied in any question of the officials. I am not rejecting the hon. Member's point, but I see a difference here. I am talking of the duties of publicly-elected representatives. I had the word "officials" question-marked in my notes. I would have raised it and dealt with it in the way as I have done.
If we are left in the situation that because of a failure to accept the obvious point of full-time pay for regional councillors and a failure to take steps to ensure that Members of Parliament and councillors can afford to be full-time members, there will be certain consequences. On the whole, the proposal in the clause will improve the quality of local government and the purity—and old-fashioned term—of local government and of the House of Commons.
I am rather disturbed at the ease with which at present certain councillors envisage themselves entering into the new structure. I am not so sure that all local councillors at present realise the size and scope of the new authorities and the demands and tasks that will be laid upon them by becoming regional councillors. These should be spelt out. I cannot see this as anything but a full-time job. If that is so, they have to find some other means of existence. I was rather shaken by hearing, in the latter part of a Committee conversation, what the amount might be for paying councillors on a full-time basis as opposed to a generous allowance scheme. The generous allowance scheme is a ridculous way of doing it. It would lead to all sorts of abuses. I have heard it said that people would get more from that. That indicates the whole principle.
This proposal is necessary for the health of local authorities, and, more important, for the health of democracy in this country. It will help to deal with the malaise. We could have a revolution in this Chamber which would not touch the perimeter of the Palace of Westminster. Along with that malaise has come a feeling of the irrelevance of ourselves. We have to watch this mood. It is the background of some of the success and of the failure of the community politics of the Liberal Party which I have seen taking a dishonest form, somehow to detach the individual


from general politics. There is a danger in this.
In putting forward this proposal I want to make it clear that we are not all the same. Most councillors and most Members of Parliament are honest, straightforward and incorruptible. This is one means of dealing with those who are not. More important, is the majority with which I am concerned.

Mr. Dempsey: My hon. Friend is hell bent on having this register of interests. How does he propose that the clause will be enforced if it becomes law?

Mr. Buchan: The most important enforcement section is in the second half. The first part deals with the right to know, which would be on the register. Other clauses deal with that information in relation to voting aspects, laid down in Clause 89 onwards, and limitations in terms of voting in the form of penalties when such interests are not disclosed. On the overall question, there is the massive penalty that an agent, director or shareholder denies for the firm by which he is employed the entry into a contract with the local authority of which he is a member. That is a massive penalty. That is why he has to choose.
We are not all the same. Here I speak to my own party. While outside influence as part of the system is almost an article of faith of Conservative hon. Members, because they believe in capitalism and want to encourage and develop it and can see no reason why they should give much of their time to other business, that is not true of members of the Labour movement. We want to alter or to destroy particular aspects of the unacceptable face of capitalism. I regret that some of my colleagues have become part of that structure. We have an extra obligation to avoid that.
We have to choose. Jennie Buchan, my wife, writing in Tribune a year ago, quoted the Bible when saying that one cannot serve two masters. That is true. We have to create a situation in which the councillor serves only one master—the people who put him into his position of responsibility

Mr. MacArthur: The hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) seemed

to think it disreputable that we on the Government side of the House should wish to encourage capitalism. Disreputable or not, that is certainly something that I want to do, because it is in the interests of the progress of this country that capitalism should be encouraged.
It is because of that belief that I view with great dismay the moonshine proposals put forward by the Labour Party for the nationalisation of the major companies in this country. The hon. Member for Renfrew, West may well believe that the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) could run Marks and Spencer, which is on the list, better than the directors of Marks and Spencer. My belief is that the public at large is much better served by the present system.
Having said that, I agree entirely with the hon. Member that where an interest lies it shoud be declared so that Parliament or a local council will know whether one of its members has a financial interest in the matter under consideration. But I suggest that the new clause goes much too far. It includes extraordinary words which are in line with the crazy thinking which is sometimes illustrated by the hon. Member. It states:
where a member of an authority is an agent, representative, executive, director or shareholder in any commercial or industrial firm, that firm may not enter into any contractual arrangement with that authority.
I accept completely that if a member of the local authority is an agent, representative, executive or director of a company, he should make that known so that any decision reached by the local authority can be reached in the knowledge that that member of the authority has a direct interest in the company under consideration. I suggest, however, that it is crazy to extend this to the proposal that if he is a shareholder in any commercial or industrial firm which might do business with the local authority, that firm should be denied the possibility of doing such business simply because one of the councillors happens to be a shareholder.
How is one to decide what a shareholding amounts to? For all I know, the hon. Member may have had close associations with a union in the past. He may have had some interest in indirect investment through union funds and his


union—I suspect that the hon. Member belongs to a union—may well have invested substantial funds in a whole range of industry in Britain. Therefore, if not a direct shareholder, he is an indirect shareholder in many public companies.
Does it follow that a local authority, if the hon. Member were to be a member of it, would not be able to conduct business with one of the companies or parent companies in which he indirectly held an interest? The hon. Member may well, for all I know, have an interest in a contributory pension fund, managed by one of the great insurance companies which are contributing so enormously to our balance of payments position and which the Labour Party seeks to nationalise. Among these is the General Accident Insurance Co. in Perth. I hope that Sir Henry Hardman will take note of this. The General Accident Insurance Co. is one of the largest insurance companies in the world, and it runs most efficiently and profitably from Perth, in the centre of Scotland.

Mr. Buchan: Before boasting about General Accident being a Scottish firm the hon. Gentleman should remember that it was the company that did not pay out after the 22 deaths in the James Watt Street fire.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. MacArthur: The hon. Gentleman may make that remark if he likes. However, he will agree with me that General Accident is one of the world's greatest insurance companies, that it is centred on Perth, and that it operates efficiently from there—a point which I call to the attention of Sir Henry Hardman.
A local councillor could well hold shares in a company such as Thomas Tilling, which is a large holding company. I am sure that every shareholder in Thomas Tilling will read the company's report and have a good knowledge of the major subsidiary holdings held by Thomas Tilling, but an individual shareholder may not have precise knowledge of some of the company's lesser holdings. A local councillor could well find himself under some legal penalty because of the provisions of the clause.
A local councillor might in all innocence hold shares in Thomas Tilling which held shares in a subsidiary which held shares in an associate company which proposed to tender for a contract with a local authority. Yet the clause would make it impossible for the local authority to do business with that firm even if the member of the local authority had no knowledge of his connection with it.
The hon. Gentleman, who believes in direct labour, might well propose that a district council should order overalls for some members of its direct labour force. One of the council members might well have shares in Courtaulds which might, directly or indirectly, have complete ownership of, or at least a stake in, a company making a fabric for the overalls which the local authority was to buy. According to the clause, the council would be debarred from doing business with that company, or, if it did, the councillor who innocently had shares in Courtaulds would be acting contrary to the law.
I could extend this. I could take the case of Imperial Chemical Industries, Distillers or any of the great companies which contribute so much to the country's growth and to the people's prosperity. Any one of these companies has a mass of diverse interests, and a small shareholder might not have a precise knowledge of the extent of the diverse interests. Yet, by virtue of the new clause, councils would be debarred from doing business with any subsidiaries of such companies if any local authority members held shares in the major companies.
The clause as it stands is absurd and reflects the absurd thinking of the Labour Party exemplified by the narrow doctrinaire approach of the hon. Member for Renfrew, West.

Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), in so characterising the clause, does less than justice to the intention expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan).
It is surely desirable in the interests of democracy that transactions in which


local authority representatives are involved should be known to all. The first half of the clause, in seeking to set up a register disclosing the full extent of the financial interests of representatives on the council, simply gives some body to that general desire.
I wish I could go the whole way with my hon. Friend with regard to the second half of the clause. However, it is not so easy to do so, because in practice certain difficulties arise to which my hon. Friend did not devote full attention. First, my hon. Friend spoke, in justification for the proposal that firms should not enter into contractual arrangements if shareholders in that firm were members of the local authority, in the context of members of the local authority being full-time employed by the local authority.
Although I entirely go along with my hon. Friend's view that it is extremely probable that certainly at the regional level and in the West Central Scotland region most of the members of the authority will in practice be virtually full time, I do not think that the same considerations apply to the district authority. Indeed, even the busiest district authority representatives are hardly likely to find it possible to make a living out of their work on the district authority, even taking the most generous arrangement which the Government may make.
However, it must be realised that it is at the district level that many of the decisions will be taken in which this apparent conflict of interests will lie, particularly with regard to the housing function.
There is another general principle which the House should bear in mind in considering conditions of membership or the criteria which should apply to those who wish to go forward for local government service. It is desirable to widen rather than restrict the categories of persons who participate in local government. Any measures which would operate in a restrictive capacity to exclude people from service on local authorities would be unfortunate. The clause would necessarily exclude from service any local authority work very large numbers of people who I believe would be able to give great service.
I do not think that it follows—here do not go all the way with my hon.

Friend—that a shareholding in a company is necessarily incompatible with membership of a local authority. Someone standing for election to a local authority would be bound to think twice if he thought that his shareholding in a company would in some way restrict the freedom of the local authority to enter into contractual arrangements with companies which he might be, even in a most marginal way, associated.
Campaigns might be mounted against individuals on the grounds that a possible conflict of interest would lie when in fact there was little evidence of it.
My hon. Friend's intention is wholly admirable, but I am not entirely convinced that the clause, particularly in the second half of it, deals in a wholly satisfactory way with the problem we face. I might be prepared to go considerably further than my hon. Friend with regard to the disclosure requirements in the first part of the clause. Indeed, it might be reasonable to consider whether a penalty should be attached for non-disclosure of an interest. However, it is rather hard to go all the way with the restriction at the end of the clause.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: We are frequently told that we should not take a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Therefore, I shall make my remarks reasonably brief on the clause because it is a fairly nutty one.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) pointed out, an argument which was somewhat reinforced, in a rather more gentle and discreet manner, by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), the ultimate nonsense is the inclusion of the word "shareholder". I realise that the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) has little respect for the breed of shareholder. I sometimes wonder whether he really knows what a shareholder is.
The purpose of the clause, if carried into effect as it stands, would be to make it impossible for anybody who held shares in any company to stand for a local authority for fear that that company would be debarred from tendering for a contract with the local authority of which he was a member.
That is a preposterous situation. The hon. Member also failed to grasp the point of the intervention by the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) about enforcement, and that related particularly to the first part of the clause. One of the hazards about any proposal for a register of interests is that the interests which are likely to be most controversial or most undesirable are those which are least likely to appear on the register. Enforcement is a matter of considerably greater difficulty than the hon. Member for Renfrew, West seemed to realise.
Apart from all these points, the hon. Member's motivation in moving the clause is one that I find totally unacceptable because he math it clear that it was his ambition and intention, if the clause were accepted, that membership of the new local authorities would be a full-time occupation. I have always believed that the creation of a House of Commons consisting exclusively of full-time Members—a proposal which the hon. Member favours—would not enhance the respect in which this House is held by the general public—a respect which at its present level is causing the hon. Member concern which in many ways I share.
Our behaviour and our clear lack of contact with the world outside would inevitably intend to diminish the respect in which we are held, and the same applies, and for the same reasons, to the members of the new local authorities. Therefore, on the grounds of the motivation behind the clause I should not be prepared to give it any support.
However, there is a serious consideration which we have to bear in mind and which I hope my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will feel able to touch upon when replying to the debate. I suppose it could be said that corruption is the tribute that people pay for power. In the days when this place was highly corrupt Members of Parliament had a great deal of power. It would be no exaggeration to say that there is a certain amount of corruption in American politics at congressional and senatorial levels. Members of Congress and the Senate have considerable power—much more than hon. Members of this House

have enjoyed for a long time. In some respects, however, we have to recognise that members of local authorities, whether the local authorities which are now disappearing or the ones which we shall create in future, have considerable power in certain specific areas. Clearly we should be deluding ourselves if we did not imagine that there was a certain amount of public unease about the circumstances in which these powers are sometimes exercised.
I agree with the hon. Member for Renfrew, West that obviously the vast majority of members of existing local authorities are not corrupt. Equally I do not think that we can delude ourselves that there is no public concern in some areas and about some authorities. This has existed for many years. Equally we should be deluding ourselves to imagine that that sort of concern was necessarily disappearing with the change in the system of local government because we are establishing new local authorities which will have very real powers in planning and development and which it would be in the interests of some people to seek to corrupt if they had the opportunity to do so.
8.15 p.m.
Therefore I hope that in replying to the debate my hon. Friends, while not hesitating to reject the clause, will nevertheless be able to say something about the Government's thinking on ways in which we can effectively endeavour to safeguard the new local authorities against the risks and temptations which the powers with which they are endowed in the Bill are liable to subject their members. If my hon. Friend can say something on the matter perhaps the new clause has provided a context for it, though heaven forbid we should take it as our lesson for today.

Mr. Russell Johnston: I do not intend to say much about the clause but there are a few points I should like to make. I understand that the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) in moving the clause is seeking to do what he considers to be the best. However, we are all of us in a contradictory situation. A great many of us feel that privacy of the individual is increasingly being invaded and many of


us are worried about the ways in which this is done. I do not know what other hon. Members think, but my constituents come to me and ask why they should divulge certain information, why people should want to know their income and what business is it of people to want to know this or that about a private individual.
This is a matter of concern for people, and yet while the Liberal Members in the House have already established a register of interests for themselves, nevertheless it is regrettable that we should be forced into the position of doing these things. It would be equally regrettable if the same situation were to be forced upon the local authorities. Many people have good reasons for not wanting to tell the whole world where they get their money. Their reasons may be worthwhile. I am in the happy virginal position that I have no income from any other source to declare or to be found out, but it is important with the new authorities that people should not be discouraged from putting up for election.
I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Renfrew, West. We are beginning more and more to put ourselves in fish bowls, however, and fewer and fewer people are willing to stand in fish bowls and be looked at. I accept the first part of the clause but not the second. I do not believe that the first part is practical for a variety of the reasons which have been expressed. It would need to be set out in most watertight terms to be practical. I am not a great business expert but I understand that wives are frequently used to disclaim any personal responsibility or interest when that interest exists.

Mr. Robert Hughes: In the Bill the interests of the spouse, if known, are grounds for disqualification.

Mr. Johnston: I understand the hon. Member's point about voting on a contract, but here we are talking about whether a firm should be open to enter into any contractual arrangement with the authority.
On the third point I agree with what has been said by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) that anything which limits people's democratic choice is a bad thing.
The hon. Member for Renfrew, West said that one cannot serve two masters. I am happy to allow the electors to make the choice, provided they know the kind of choice they have to make. If the member declares his interests and they are registered, it is reasonable and fair for the public to decide whether they want him.

Mr. Buchan: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman accepts that every candidate should publish on the polling form or on his election address a list of his interests, saying that he represents financial institutions or whatever? If that is not done, no choice can be made by the elector.

Mr. Johnston: I have never thought of the matter in that way, but I should have no objection to that sort of thing. However, I am not sure how far it should be taken. Most candidates have a whole curriculum vitae at the back of their election addresses.
I do not think that the second part of the clause is practical or desirable. There is an adequate safeguard if the interests are known. We shall not succeed with this new scheme of local government unless we attract people of very high calibre, and if the clause excluded such people from giving service to local authorities it would have a very regrettable effect.

Mr. Peter Doig: I support the good intentions of my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan), but, unfortunately, the clause will not carry out those intentions. It is full of loopholes. For example, a member of a local authority is not allowed to take part in any business in which he has a direct financial interest of the kind listed. He must declare the interest, and not take part in the business.

Mr. Dempsey: And sign the book.

Mr. Doig: In some cases he might sign the book, but in my area one's word on the matter is taken.
Apart from the interest of a member of a local authority, his wife can have an interest. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) said that that is covered; but


there can also be an interest of his son, his daughter, his mother-in-law, or father-in-law, and all sorts of other people connected with him. How far do we extend the clause? The more I consider it, the more it seems impossible to cover that sort of thing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West referred to corruption that had been brought to light. The vast majority of such cases would not have been prevented if the clause had been in effect, because they concerned not shareholders, employees or agents but the people by whom councillors were bribed, the people for whom they obtained contracts. Therefore, the clause would not achieve my hon. Friend's purpose. But it would create a great deal of trouble and hardship, and, therefore, I cannot support it.
In many areas the local Co-op tenders for contract. In my area it was at one time the principal supplier of milk under contract. If we applied the clause strictly, the local Co-op would be debarred, because there are so many people with a few shares in it.
Before thinking of standing for the council, many people work for firms that may well tender for contract. I worked for 20 years in a firm before I stood for the council, and if the clause had been in operation it would no longer have been able to keep on tendering, or else I would have been out of a job. I would have got the sack straight away, because the firm would not have been able to afford to do without those contracts.
The more I study the clause, the more I come to the conclusion that it will achieve none of my hon. Friend's good intentions but will cause a tremendous amount of trouble and unfairness. I began by having sympathy for the first half and being against the second, but the more I listen to the debate and think of my own experiences the more certain I am that I can no longer even abstain. I must vote against the clause, because it will not solve the sort of problems that my hon. Friend thought it would solve. Instead, it will cause a great deal of trouble, which we must guard against.
The clause could well harm people who do not have interests. They could be like Lord Polwarth. Perhaps their wives, unknown to them, bought a few units in trusts investing in companies that obtain contracts from the corporation of which they are members. That could easily happen. There are all sorts of ways in which such complications could arise, possibly innocently, without the knowledge of those concerned.
It may be that the present law covers a person's wife but not his son. In many firms in my area the father is not strictly involved but has a roundabout interest in the business, not a financial interest, but just an interest in the well-being of his son. Other members of the family may be involved. Must the father leave the council for that reason?
I may be told that the provision does not cover that, but what will the public think when they discover that one council member whose wife owns a few shares, or is employed by a firm that obtains council contracts, must declare his interests and suffer all the consequences, while another does not have to do so because the person concerned is his son, daughter-in-law, nephew, some other relation, or just a personal friend? The public will think that the provisions should cover everybody.
Then we shall end up with nobody being eligible to stand for a council. We have already barred employees of councils. My party intends to nationalise other industries, and no doubt local authorities intend to start fresh departments. When I was on the council we took over a number of departments and created new ones. The increase in the number of council staff is bound to continue, and the number of people who will be debarred from standing for local councils will gradually snowball to the point where hardly anyone will be eligible.
Local authorities are responsible for vast sums of money. During the time that I was treasurer of Dundee I was spending more money than the largest business in the city. Are we to have a situation in which, because of the restrictive nature of the choice of members, colossal amounts of money will be controlled by people who are inferior in the


sense that they have neither experience nor other qualifications?
The more I look at the new clause, the more I am convinced that not only must I not support my hon. Friend but that I must go against him.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Ewing: As one of the signatories to the new clause I acknowledge the obvious, that there are defects and weaknesses in the clause. However, this debate has brought out the serious degree of concern which is felt by many people. That degree of concern is expressed in an editorial contained in today's edition of the Daily Record. Any hon. Members who choose to ignore that degree of concern or who display the same lack of knowledge of the outside world as the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) will do so at their peril.
For a brief moment I shall take up the frivolous and irrelevant intervention of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), who dealt with a serious subject in a jocular manner. I do not speak for insurance companies and it is my view that no insurance company would want to be blamed for the present balance of payments situation for which the Government is responsible. I see, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you shake your head. Fortunately, you did not have the misfortune to have to listen—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will confine his remarks to the new clause under discussion.

Mr. Ewing: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was sympathising with or congratulating you on your good fortune. This is a new clause about which sensational statements could be made. However, I am not given to sensationalism. I shall not make any sensational statements. I shall not seek the protection which the House affords hon. Members who wish to make allegations which often cannot be substantiated.
It is significant that the associated amendments open up to the electorate a degree of inspection. It is important that we should recognise that those who have criticised the new clause, including my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig), have done so because of the loopholes which they claim exist.
I accept that there are obvious loopholes, but there have been no attempts to suggest alternative ways by which this serious problem could be handled. I hope that the Minister will concentrate on that matter when he replies.
The problem does not begin only when a councillor stands for election. Problems appear very often after a councillor has been elected and when he finds himself in a position of responsibility. A firm may then offer him a tempting job. In the process of his being offered that job, that firm may know that there is something to be gained by having that person, who now finds himself on the council, on the payroll as an employee.
There are serious defects which should not be ignored. There is a serious area of concern among the electorate, not only in Scotland but in England and Wales. When the Minister replies I hope that he will not ignore that concern. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan), my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) and myself have done the House a service by introducing the new clause, however many loopholes there may be, and by allowing discussion to take place. The matter has been brought out into the open. Let us hear the Government's thinking about how the problem is to be handled.

Mr. Younger: It is important that in setting up a new local government system we should do everything which we can to ensure that there is the minimum temptation to any form of corruption in the course of the activities of the councillors who may be elected. It is important that we should ensure that the public can see that such is the case.
I echo the words of those hon. Members who have made it clear that in the criticisms which we make about the new clause we do not mean—and I should not like it to be thought that this is what I mean—that here is widespread corruption in Scottish local government. In fact, it is remarkable how fortunate Scotland has been for many years; one has only to consider the high quality of the councillors who have been elected. We should not let the idea get about that there is corruption. That would be extremely offensive to the many excellent councillors whom many hon. Members know. I believe that by and large the


great majority of councillors do a marvellously good job entirely honestly.
My right hon. Friend put down Amendments Nos. 66 and 81 to fulfil an undertaking I gave at the twenty-eighth sitting of the Committee to provide in the register for the pecuniary interests of members to be open to the inspection of all. I was pressed to do this and promised to look again at the matter. Amendment No. 67 would substitute the word "public" for the word "member". Although the objectives of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and mine are exactly the same, I suggest that his wording might lead to some confusion and that the wording of Amendment No. 66 is clearer. I hope, therefore, that the House will accept our Amendments Nos. 66 and 81, which fulfil my undertaking, and that the right hon. Gentleman will accept my intention as being the same as his. I believe that our wording is rather more logical than his alternative, although I accept that it is a matter of opinion.
I do not think that I need dwell for long on new Clause 9, because it does not appear to have many friends anyway. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) and the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) did a complete job of demonstrating some of its weaknesses. It refers to disclosures. At present a member needs to disclose on the general register of interests such interests as he would consider it necessary to give in a general notice to the local authority. He would disclose, of course, any other casual interest—that is to say, matters he would not have expected beforehand might come before the council—at the meeting at which such matter was to be considered.
The concrete and sound principle upon which we have worked is that interests should be known and that on a matter affected by an interest the member should not take part and use his vote. That is extremely important and clear and cannot be got round. The wording of the Bill and the amendments we propose will make it equally clear to the general public and enable it, in the person of any elector in the area, to see the information contained in the notice.
The second part of New Clause 9 attracted most criticism and the criticisms, although no doubt some may be

more so than others, are all pretty telling. I will not comment in detail on the examples given by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire, but some do raise very serious problems. As an example of the unsuitability of the new clause, I would point out that it appears to me that it would be possible for a councillor who might be particularly ill-disposed towards a particular company, for reasons which we might or might not understand, to buy a few shares in it and thereby prevent it from getting any business at all from the council of which he was a member. I am sure that that was not the intention of the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) but it would be one of the effects.
My hon. Friend mentioned various companies. I would like to take the case of the shareholder in a co-operative society. Would New Clause 9 mean that the co-operative society would not be able to tender for any contracts from the local council because a councillor was one of its shareholders? I am sure that was not one of the hon. Gentleman's intentions. Nor am I certain about the position of one of the employees of the National Coal Board who happens to be a councillor. I am not certain whether the clause would apply to all employees of the National Coal Board but if some of them were members of councils would those councils not be permitted by the clause to buy coal? If so, I can see considerable difficulties.
I do not think I need spend any more time on the clause except to say that the hon. Member had every right to propose it, but I suggest that the case made against it has been overwhelming.

Mr. Buchan: Would the Under-Secretary now deal with the principle of the thing? We all know that the wording is defective. I could deal with that with even more enthusiasm. Would not the hon. Gentleman deal with its inherent principle so that we would better know whether we should vote for it or not in the light of his view of the principle? May we know whether the hon. Gentleman accepts the principle or otherwise?

Mr. Younger: I must deal with the clause as put down. The hon. Member


has had every opportunity to put in a better form. The principle he has in mind is very difficult to attain, considering all the difficulties which hon. Members on both sides have so well explained. The important thing here is that councillors' interests should be known acid be made clear and be known to the public and that councillors should not take part or vote on matters in which they have such personal interests. The Bill with the amendments we have proposed gives maximum freedom to councillors and local authorities to do their job and prevents what would be more or less a prohibition on a large section of the public from taking part in local government unless they gave up their jobs. That would be undesirable.

Mr. Ross: We are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) and to my other two hon. Friends for putting down this new clause. Let us not receive ourselves. If we had not discussed this subject we should have been failing in our duty. The new local authorities will deal with very much larger matters even than education or the construction industry and the rest. Had we not discussed this we should have been failing in our duty. That is why I deprecate the general tone of the speech of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur).
The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) in his speech was a bit unfair to my hon. Friend—deliberately, I do not doubt—when he questioned his motives. As the hon. Member should know by this time, I have a habit of writing down phrases which people use and which I think interesting, and the question on which the hon. Member dwelt was that of motivation. If a person's motivation is not his motive, I do not know what it is. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not tell us he did not use the word "motivation". He questioned the motivation of the new clause.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I was not casting aspersions on the motives of the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan). What I was saying was that the hon. Member had made it clear that in his thinking his motivation was that ideally the members of the new local authorities should perform a full time rôle without

outside occupations. That was an objective with which I disagreed, but I did not suggest that there was anything improper about it. I simply said that that was the motivation which he ascribed, and which I did not share.

Mr. Ross: I am glad to have that explanation of this curious phrasing. The hon. Member used it at one point and he seemed to imply that my hon. Friend was determined to cut out of local government everyone with any connection with commerce or industry or anything else. That was not my hon. Friend's intention.
My hon. Friend said the clause is tough, but its toughness is related to the mood of the moment. I do not think any of us should be satisfied with the present position or plead, as some of my hon. Friends have suggested, that interests are declared or registered in a book, because, despite that, these things happen and are happening and are a slur on the great majority of members of local authorities who sacrifice a great deal to serve their communities. I am not worried about its being tough as long as it is fair, as long as it is right, and as long as it achieves its objectives.
8.45 p.m.
Under the Bill we do not allow a teacher to serve on the local authority which employs him. We do not allow a bus-driver or conductor to serve in Dundee—or a roadman or a fireman. Let us appreciate that we place on certain individuals not just inhibitions but complete bars upon service. Why? Because we think that they might use their influence and power to help themselves. Illogical as we are, we go out of our way to single out teachers at another point and bring them back, with the consent of everyone.
Here it is not just a question of the individual. Everyone is agreed that there should be a register. I thank the Under-Secretary for what he said about his two amendments and I accept that the register will be open to the public and will be widened to cover public as well as local authorities. The nub of the question is, what do we do about the firm which deliberately suborns someone as a representative to use the influence that can only be his?
It is not just a question of voting; it is a question of the influence that is wielded by a person in such a position. The suggestion is that we do not bring pressure upon the individual but upon the firm. I am sure that Conservative Members would agree that we should do this if we can find a fair way of doing it.

Mr. MacArthur: But the new clause does not do that.

Mr. Ross: I am coming to that. Consider the general run of people who have served on local authorities over the years, people in industry and commerce, who have never been anywhere near having contracts with the local authority. Let us not give the impression that this would cut everyone out. I do not think it would. But it might cut some people out. Someone opposed to a firm getting a contract has only to purchase a share in that firm. Obviously this would be wrong. In seeking to prevent undue influence being used we would be putting a weapon into someone's hands that would enable him to exert undue influence.
The weakness is the shareholder part of it. Had the reference been to a substantial shareholding, that might have been better. It would have pleased me a little more. I do not think we shall ever be able to wipe out this entirely, particularly if we subject people to financial pressures in carrying out their business. In the old days it used to be the licensing committee. Now it is not the licensing committee. Nowadays a decision made by the planning committee can mean someone getting a fortune.
Let there be less sneering. Let us appreciate that the number of people who fall by the wayside are few. The only way in which this can be done is by putting pressure not on the individual but on the people who use the individual. That is the reason for the toughness. The Minister, who was concerned about other aspects, did not properly appreciate that. I should like the Government to accept that principle. If the Minister will do so it will go a long way with my hon. Friends. If the clause is not accepted we shall need to pursue this matter.
A purpose has been served by airing our concern and our appreciation that the sphere of concern is narrow, but there is still a gap which will have to be plugged. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will take the general feeling of the House and, when the Bill goes to another place, see whether it can be given this additional dimension of toughness not in relation to the councillor but in relation to those who would use him in a particular way.

Mr. Buchan: This has been an interesting debate. I was particularly interested in the Freudian reaction from hon. Gentlemen on the Government Benches as soon as "shareholder" was mentioned—they rose like gnats.
There is no problem about people being excluded. Vast numbers of people who work for the council on a weekly wage are excluded. Why should not one or two shareholders be excluded? The shareholders and the firm have a choice. My heart does not bleed because Wimpey or MacAlpine cannot get a particular contract. My heart bleeds a lot more for the people on a weekly wage.
The House has been given an excellent illustration of how to avoid a declaration of principle by talking about loopholes. The Minister even failed to think of a denunciation of the principle. The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. BruceGardyne)—the sea-green incorruptible of the Right—was able to take a principled attitude. The difference between us is that he rejects the unacceptable face of capitalism and I reject the acceptable face of capitalism. The principle is crystal clear and should be carried out in practice. If the Minister accepted the principle we would be prepared to help the Government to reach a more perfect form of words.
Clause 41 mentions a nominal shareholding of £1,000. If that could be written into the clause the loopholes could be avoided. The blockbuster problem was raised of a firm buying a few shares in a competing firm. That is the unacceptable face of capitalism. What a morality, that a provision designed to deal with corruption should be used in that way! I did not think of that. The party of Lonrho thinks of these things. The Conservative Party's first reaction is to ask "How do we get round it?"

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman will have forgotten that his right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) thought of it too.

Mr. Buchan: Yes, my right hon. Friend works on a double level. He has had such vast experience of the Conservative Party that he asks himself how the party will react and how he will deal with it. We have already said there is a massive form of enforcement in the Bill, but if a person becomes involved in the situation I have described his company might not enter into a contract. That is a pretty massive penalty. If the Conservative hon. Members are really enthusiastic let them write in a financial penalty for the failure to disclose in full the register of interest. That section of the clause deals with the right to know.
If someone signed the register of interest and had not disclosed to the full his interest, the effect, when that failure emerged, would be more devastating than writing in a fine. The great error that the Minister of State in the Scottish Office made—and the Prime Minister too—when the question of oil shares in his possession came to public notice was not in saying "We accept and discard" but in trying to say twice "this does not really matter." Ministers, like Caesar's wife, should be above suspicion. I thought that was a deplorable, petulant letter we had from the Prime Minister.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish unwittingly to mislead the House. My noble Friend did not have any oil shares; it was a holding in an investment trust.

Mr. Buchan: We accept that, but the basic point remains. The question of the spouse is dealt with in the Bill and is not a problem. We can deal with it, and once it is accepted by the Conservative Party we can write in various exclusions in the form of a schedule. The milk round would continue.
The present situation is that unless we in this House at least indicate firmly—a number of Members on the Labour side have indicated firmly that they recognise the problem we face—we shall not be able to deal with some of the malaise I have described. The fight on this will continue. It must continue because it has to be cleaned up. I agree that the

clause is only part of the fight, the part that can help in the meantime to protect the innocent while we can deal with some of the guilty that emerge in another form. The recognition of the paid councillor and the full-time paid regional councillor in an area such as Strathclyde is necessary. That was the second prong of a double-pronged amendment.
Now the 64,000 dollar question: in view of the total lack of assurances that I have received from the Minister should I withdraw the amendment? Yes, I will I hope the Government will have learned a lesson from today. I will withdraw it because we shall not carry it and because the Government apparently regard themselves as incapable of knocking a correct principle into correct drafting shape.

Motion, and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 10

TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS

56A.—(1) Where it appears to a District Council that the Regional Council should be required to make arrangements for the discharge by the former of any of the latter's functions but the latter is unwilling to enter into the arrangements or the two Councils are unable to agree on the terms of the arrangements, the District Council may apply to the Secretary of State for a direction under subsection (3) below.

(2) Where it appears to a Regional Council that a District Council should be required to make arrangements for the discharge by the former of any of the latter's functions but latter is unwilling to enter into the arrangements, the Regional Council may apply to the Secretary of State for a direction under subsection (3) below.

(3) On an application under subsection (1) or (2) above the Secretary of State—
(a) may, if he considers it desirable for the efficient discharge of the relevant functions or of other functions of either or both of the Councils concerned, direct the Regional Council and the District Council concerned to enter into any arrangements for the discharge by one of them of specified functions of the other; and
(b) whether or not he gives a direction under paragraph (a) above, may direct that any such arrangements shall contain terms on lines laid down by him

(4) Whether or not an application under subsection (1) or (2) above has been made to the Secretary of State may none the less, if he considers it desirable for the efficient discharge of the relevant functions of a District or Regional Council, direct the District and Regional Councils concerned to enter into


an arrangement for the discharge by one of them of specified functions of the other; and the Secretary of State may direct that any such arrangements shall contain terms on lines laid down by him.—[Mr. Maclennan.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Maclennan: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Its purpose is to permit both regional and district councils to seek from the Secretary of State for Scotland a direction enabling the functions normally exercised by one authority to be exercised by the other. It also provides that the Secretary of State may on his own initiative direct either the regional or the district council to exercise the functions normally exercised by the other.
The clause stems from the concern which has been expressed to me in and throughout the Highlands region that the Government's decision to deprive the districts in the Highlands region of some of the functions which can be exercised by district councils in other parts of Scotland will lead to a diminution in the status of the district councils in the Highlands, to some threat to their attractiveness and possibly a threat to their viability in terms of attracting local Government officials to service them.
Although that is the purpose of the clause, I suggest that it could be useful in an altogether wider context. In the course of the passage of the Bill so far it has become clear that the new structure of local government in Scotland will create very marked imbalances between the regions and the districts throughout Scotland and not simply in the Highland region. The overbalancing weight of the West-Central region has been commented on frequently during the passage of the Bill, and the smallness in size of certain other regions, notably the Borders, makes it seem likely that they will be substantially less authoritative than certain other regions. The pattern suggested by Wheatley has been eroded to some extent by the response of the House to pressures from various localities, most notably in the case of Fife.
It seems that one consequence of this is that the division of functions as between the regional and district authorities does not fall so neatly and logically into place under the Bill as it did under the arrange-

ments recommended by Wheatley, and expressions of concern have been made throughout the passage of the Bill, especially in the context of West-Central Scotland, about some of the powers being exercised by the regions. An example of this is the education function. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craig-ton (Mr. Millan) has made some points along these lines on a number of occasions.
We must recognise that we are moving into terra incognita in reorganising local government as we are and that it is by no means clear that the allocation of functions as between region and district makes complete sense in all cases. The Government have shown that they are not approaching the matter in a wholly doctrinaire spirit. They have changed their minds on a number of occasions, for example in the allocation of the housing authority function. They have certainly departed from the Wheatley recommendations in a number of important respects.
The clause will allow the Government and local authorities in Scotland the flexibility to decide, if in practice at a later date it became clear that a function had been allocated to the wrong level of local government, to reallocate it with the approval of the Govermnent of the day. This is a flexible proposal which is unlikely to be very controversial. I hope that the Government will give it their backing and accept it.
I must refer to the particular problem with which the clause seeks to deal in the context of the Highlands region. The three principal powers that the Government have allocated to the districts in other regions of Scotland are functions under the Building Acts, local planning powers and responsibility for libraries.

Mr. Dempsey: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the planning reference allocated to a district council is on physical, not structural planning? This is a fundamental difference. Some of us felt that structural planning done within a district council would be the responsibility of that authority. At the moment, that is under the region and physical planning being its responsibility means enforcement of the regional plan for that district.

Mr. Maclennan: I appreciate what my hon. Friend said. The position in the


Highlands is different from that which appertains in his part of Scotland.
While I am not prepared to argue that the Government have made a fundamental error in their distribution of functions, I must express the view which has been put to me quite forcibly by a number of local authorities in the Highlands region that it is a mistake to have allocated the local planning function to the regional authority. There may have been some second thoughts by certain local authorities in the Highlands region, but it is clear that in both Caithness and Sutherland there is grave disquiet that this function should have been allocated to the regional authority. I believe that similar disquiet is felt in the division represented by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) who, for reasons we understand, cannot participate in the debate.
These anxieties were expressed to all Members of Parliament representing Highlands constituencies at a meeting in Inverness. It was to some extent to reflect those concerns that I moved the clause.
There is a feeling that it does not make sense to treat the functions under the Building Acts separately from the housing function. To allocate the powers under the Building Acts to the districts would have made more sense in the light of the Government's decision to allocate housing functions to them. That argument also applies to many of the local planning powers.
The Wheatley Commission, considering the allocation of functions between the regions, makes a most important point on the status of the second tier authorities. The commission, in paragraph 714 of its report, states:
It is important that the second tier of local government should have worthwhile functions; that it should be regarded as having a general interest in the well being of its area ".
It goes on to say at paragraph (c):
We strongly wish to avoid creating a second tier which means very little in real terms.
That is the anxiety that persists in the Highlands, that in the arrangements made by the Government for the allocation of the functions they have created a second tier of government which will be so

powerless as to be unattractive to people who wish to serve in local government. This is symptomatic of the Government's treatment of libraries. I do not want to labour the point, but this is a peculiarly local function which Wheatley recommended should go to the lower tier, and to deprive the district council of it is not wholly justifiable in any terms.
It must be recognised that there is a special problem in the Highlands, and that is the size in population terms of some districts. The district of Nairn—and a number of others—is extremely small. That is why I have not sought in the clause to make mandatory the transfer of any functions. The clause is couched in the most permissive terms. It enables the initiative to be taken by either the district or the regional council if, in the evolution of local government, it becomes clear that a function has been wrongly allocated or would be better allocated elsewhere. The clause also allows the Secretary of State to take the initiative if, in his judgment, it would make sense to transfer the function.
I hope that the Government will appreciate that I am approaching the matter in an extremely pragmatic way, in the hope that we can learn from our experience of the reorganisation of local government and create among these new authorities the feeling that they are fulfilling as best they can the needs of their areas. I profoundly hope that the clause will meet with the approval of the Government. I feel confident that it will be widely accepted throughout the Highlands, and possibly in other parts of Scotland, too, where there is not the certainty that one might have hoped for that the functions have been allocated to the correct authority.

Mr. Russell Johnston: I shall speak briefly about the clause. I have a later amendment on the specific question of planning and I do not want to concentrate on that now.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) referred to paragraph 714 of the Wheatley Report. That was the paragraph which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I quoted in our note of dissent to the Wheatley Report because we were concerned that the amount of work being given to the second tier district council was insufficient. That


was one of the basic reasons why we argued—and I still do—that one basic mistake is that the districts are too big and that it would be better if they were smaller. Had that been the case, there would not have been this argument about community councils.
Be that as it may, we are faced with a different situation, and surely the hon. Gentleman would agree that even if the clause were accepted—and if it were all that the Government would be doing would be accepting that they take upon themselves the power to decide a matter in the event of appeal at some future date, which is not an onerous function—a fair amount of time would inevitably elapse before any such appeal were made, because neither the hon. Gentleman nor I would argue for a change of this sort—or changes such as these—quickly or suddenly.
9.15 p.m.
It would be necessary to see how it worked out before bringing into effect the kind of suggestions which have been made by the hon. Member. He is making a fair submission in arguing that, if the Government accepted what he suggests, they would not commit themselves immediately to any change in their own proposed structure but they would be accepting that there was a possibility of changes being made according to experience. This is a reasonable point to make.
I do not want to go in detail into the matter of planning, but it is embodied within the new clause. The problem exists in Inverness and Dumfries in the three regions concerned. Therefore, it is a fairly narrow problem, but it is nevertheless significant and important for these two large burghs. They are both considerable towns in their own right and they have a long experience of using these powers. Both are also expanding communities. I notice that the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) is present. I am sure he will agree with that view.
I ask the Government to give this proposal careful consideration. In different circumstances than those now existing I would not necessarily have supported the new clause, but in the present circumstances one must recognise the situation and work to deal with it in the best way possible.

Mr. Robert Hughes: The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) is worthy of serious consideration.
In discussing the tier of local government to which a particular function has been allocated, nothing is as likely as disagreement. Almost everyone involved in local government today has different views about the particular tier to which a function should be allocated. The only agreement in the matter is the agreement to disagree. My hon. Friend puts forward a mechanism whereby there may be an opportunity of changing the position of a function without the necessity of fresh legislation.
I was interested in what the Wheatley Commission said about the need for a continuous review of local government functions. The report of the commission stated, in paragraph 1109:
We trust that, following the upheaval which the introduction of a new structure of local government is bound to bring, a long period of stability lies ahead. There will still be a need to consider changes in the more distant future, however, and specific provision should be made for this.
Following this the Wheatley Commission made the point that one of the reasons why local government has got out of harmony with the current needs of people in Scotland is that, although many people were aware that changes were needed, there was no one to decide what changes were necessary. That was the reason for setting up the Wheatley Commission.
The commission recognised that there should be a continuous review but that this would not happen unless there was some kind of systematic check on the working of the various parts and the structure as a whole.
Finally the commission said, in paragraph 1121, that there should be some kind of ad hoc review body. This is very much for the future. We are concerned that there should not be sudden changes within a region or within the structure as a whole, and we want to ensure that there is some method available to make these changes without it being necessary to have a major Bill such as this one. I wonder whether this is the right method by which to do it.
In Committee we argued with some force that the Local Government Boundary Commission was the body to keep not only the boundaries but the functions and the structure under review, and that from time to time it should produce reports which would be a measure not only to the Government of how the structure was working but also to each regional and district authority by which to judge its own performance against the performance of others. If that suggestion had been adopted, perhaps there would have been no necessity for the clause. That is a matter of debate.
Perhaps the Under-Secretary can help me. I must confess that I can find no reference in the Bill to a provision for a review of functions. I had thought that there was one, but perhaps I am confusing it with the discussions that we had in Committee. We are obviously concerned about how things will work out.
As almost every hon. Member knows who has followed this matter, the Bill, even before it was amended in Committee, was not exactly in line with the Wheatley recommendations. We all pray Wheatley in aid when it suits outselves, but if we are realistic we will admit that much of what Wheatley recommended has been discarded. Perhaps the best has been thrown out and the worst kept, but no one can suggest that the Bill is entirely Wheatley.
Although my hon. Friend mentioned the specific difficulties in areas like the Highlands and Islands, where new authorities have been created which did not exist when Wheatley was published, there is great merit in his suggestion because it gives us an opporunity, in individual circumstances, to make changes where only a very general principle can be established.
The Government do not pretend that what they have in the Bill is necessarily good. They have done what they think best in the light of their own experience and advice, but none of us can tell how it will work in practice. Only the operation of the Bill when it becomes an Act can prove whether the Government or the Opposition were right in the discussions about functions. I therefore hope that the Government will be prepared to accept the clause as a basis for continuous review which might have

application beyond the area specifically laid down by my hon. Friend.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: I have a great deal of sympathy with the objects of the clause. It may be necessary at some stage to alter some of the functions of the new local authorities.
Perhaps my hon. Friend will address himself to two points. First, will he consider whether it would be possible to accept the clause with an additional subsection to say that this provision will not apply until four years after the Act comes into force? Second, does he foresee any other way in which changes in functions can take place under the structure in the Bill without a separate Act of Parliament?

Mr. Younger: I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) for the thoughtful way in which he presented his case. I know that he feels strongly and has received many representations from people in the Highland region about planning there. It was interesting also to hear the views of the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston), who is not only involved in that situation but was a member of the Wheatley Commission.
May I first clear up two misconceptions? First, in answer to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes), there is no provision in the Bill for a general review of functions. This is a matter that we consider should be raised in the normal process of consultations between the local authority associations and the Government of the day. It would be a matter upon which the Government of the day would have to take action, if such changes were needed.
The second misconception which I should correct is that several hon. Members have the idea that the clause would provide for some reallocation of function. It does not do that. The situation that it is discussing is where one authority is to provide for another to carry out its function. But it still would remain the function of the first authority, which is clearly stated as having that function.
The first point made by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland was that


the new clause would give some new and, in his view, much needed flexibility to the administration of functions between one level and another. In Clause 56(1) flexibility there already is. Clause 56(1) allows a local authority to arrange for the discharge of any of its functions by any other local authority in Scotland. The purpose of the new clause, therefore, is a little more specific than that. It is to impose compulsion on the Secretary of State, which is not exactly the same conception as flexibility.
What the hon. Member is trying to do—I understand why—is not to provide for one authority to get another authority to perform its function, but to produce machinery by which the Secretary of State can require one authority to carry out the function of another, even where one of the authorities, at least, does not wish that to be done, or, conceivably, where both of them do not wish that to be done.
We should think hard on this matter before we accepted this proposal. I should feel rather unhappy, as would my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, if we were to put into the position of trying to make a forced marriage of this kind, with two authorities which had not themselves been able to come to agreement on it, bearing in mind my previous point that the original authority would still be responsible for the function although the authority which had been required to take over the operating of that function would perform it. The resultant situation might be an unhappy one.
I am not happy with the clause, if it were passed, as a permanent feature of our legislation on local government. I am glad to see local authorities having freedom to make agency arrangements with one another, because on occasions that will be the most efficient way to get things done. The last thing that I or my right hon. Friend would want would be to become involved in issuing directions on such matters. It is well within the competence of local authorities to come to sensible agreements about such matters.
The clause would be contrary to the spirit of the Bill and to the way in which we have tackled the legislation. The clause is not very satisfactory as it is drafted, in any case, because of the limitedrôleand the fact that an authority under-

taking an agency agreement would not itself take over the functions. Therefore, it would not have the policy decisions to make, anyway. It would be merely a matter of, in this case, probably the district authority carrying out the mechanical functions, but the decision making would still be with the original council, anyway.
The hon. Member rightly raised the question of the problems in the Highlands region and the planning powers of the district. The hon. Member for Inverness also made this point. The real reason for the different allocation of functions in these outlying regions is that it was a direct result of our decision, made in the light of many representations put to us, to create a larger number of districts. We did not create as large a number as the hon. Member for Inverness would have liked, but we decided that the representations for more districts were powerful. Therefore, we created a larger number of districts. Inevitably this meant some districts with very much less substantial resources than those of other regions.
9.30 p.m.
In view of all the observations that have been made about all this, we have carefully gone into all possible alternative forms of organisation for this problem of planning in the Highlands region. We have included all sorts of alternatives, including a non-uniform allocation of functions within a single region which is what the clause might in a way be aimed at trying to achieve—that is, by giving additional power to some of the larger districts but not to some of the smaller districts.
I suggest that such an arrangement would create a considerable practical string of difficulties in its wake and cause a certain amount of confusion. After all our careful thought about this, I believe that it would not be in the best interests of planning in these regions to have the regional councils responsible for local planning in some districts while in others this function was handled by the district councils. This would not facilitate an integrated approach to all aspects of planning, which we are all agreed is necessary in the outlying regions where, for instance, development control is a very different matter from what it is in the more densely populated areas.
I greatly appreciate the points which the hon. Gentleman is trying to solve by the clause, but I suggest, first, that it does not quite do what he hopes that it would do and, secondly, I tell him frankly that I could not support, for the reasons that I have outlined, his object of trying to get at least some of the districts in the Highlands region with local planning powers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) asked about the question of introducing a proposal whereby there would be, say, a four-year trial period for the present range of functions with an automatic review thereafter. I see the point. It is obviously necessary to gain experience of how things work before making changes. However, this is not the right way to tackle such a fundamental change in local government. We must not go into it in a half-hearted way.
What my hon. Friend seeks to achieve could probably be best achieved, anyway, by the Government of the day, after a period probably of three of four years, having another review of the whole working of the system with the local authority associations and then deciding whether they wished to make changes.
The clause seeks to achieve an end which I respect, but I could not agree with its general purpose. It would not achieve that purpose exactly in the way the hon. Gentleman intends. I thank him for tabling the clause and enabling us to have this debate, but I ask the House not to accept it.

Mr. Maclennan: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for what he said, but I must express the profoundest disappointment with the content. He has, I presume unwittingly, distorted both the purpose and the consequence of the clause.
Although I described earlier the provenance of the clause as being related to the representations which I have received in the Highlands about the functions of the district authority, as I perceive the situation there is widespread dissatisfaction throughout Scotland at the notion that these functions as allocated in the Bill are finally so allocated.
What the Under-Secretary is saying in advising the House to reject the clause is that he is completely satisfied that the Government have got it right and are

allocating the functions to the proper authority. That is a view that remarkably few people in local government in Scotland would support.
As the Under-Secretary indicated, I have not in the clause sought to reallocate functions. I have simply suggested—it is a very reasonable suggestion—that in the light of experience the local authorities themselves could come to the Secretary of State and say, "We think that the functions should be reallocated." The Under-Secretary admitted that as the Bill stands there is no provision for reviewing the allocation of functions. He says that the way it should be done is in consultation with the local authority associations.
I do not believe that that is a wholly satisfactory suggestion. The local authority associations necessarily represent all the local authorities and the one thing that is clear in Scotland is that the pattern of local government is diverse and that the local authority associations do not always speak for the local authorities. It therefore seems to me desirable that the views of individual local authorities are much more important in this this respect than the views of the associations.
I find the Minister's squeamishness about intervening to suggest to local authorities what reallocation of functions they should embark upon somewhat hard to understand in view of his brazen insistence that he is right on the present allocation of functions. He has no doubts in his mind about the correctness of the situation and yet he recoils from the possibility that he may be wrong and that in future he might wish to admit that he was wrong.

Mr. Younger: Is not the hon. Member falling under the misconception that I tried to correct? I was recoiling from the possibility of the Secretary of State intervening and forcing one authority to take an agency for the functions of another. The hon. Member is now suggesting that I am recoiling from another idea—that we had got the allocation of functions wrong, which is an entirely different matter.

Mr. Maclennan: The Under-Secretary has now moved on to the agency point which I wanted to deal with separately


because I reject it. As I understand the Bill it makes provision for the sharing of functions. My clause does not import the notion of agency. The arrangement would be for the discharge by one authority of the functions of another. I cannot understand or follow the suggestion that such a transfer of function would not in effect import the responsibility for decision making. The Under-Secretary must have got the point wrong. I am sure that that is a misrepresentation of the consequences of the clause.
The Minister concluded by saying that he foresaw practical difficulties. I am sorry that such an omnibus assertion was not backed up by examples of the practical difficulties which he foresaw, and it cannot carry much weight. I foresee many more practical difficulties from the allocation of functions under the Bill. Take the practical difficulties that local authorities at the district level, for example in the Highlands, might have in attracting officials of the appropriate calibre to service them if the functions of the authorities are so limited. That is a practical difficulty which should carry weight with the Government.
I put it to the Under-Secretary that the flexibility of the proposals embodied in the clause would enable the practical difficulties to be ironed out in discussion between local authorities. This would be in a prior attempt to come to an

arrangement about the transfer of functions and in subsequent discussions with the Secretary of State. That is the way these things are done. I see no practical difficulties whatever. It would practically be much more difficult to reallocate functions if it were widely felt that they had gone to the wrong authority if there were no statutory power of the kind that I seek to include in the Bill. It is hard to foresee the circumstances in which Parliament would seriously consider the reallocation of functions as between a region and a particular district, and this is the kind of matter which is eminently suitable for such an administrative arrangement, not for legislation.

It is very disappointing that the Government have taken such a singularly inflexible attitude to the whole question. I hope that it is not because they are so persuaded of the rectitude of their decision about the allocation of functions between authorities that they are not prepared to consider the possibility that it might prove desirable in the future to change it. I am prepared to concede that they may have it right, but not that it should be incapable of change.

Therefore, I ask my hon. Friends to divide in support of the clause.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 146, Noes 162.

Division No. 160.]
AYES
[9.40 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Dempsey, James
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Doig, Peter
Hughes, Mark (Durham)


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Dormand, J. D.
Hughes, Roy (Aberdeen, N.)


Armstrong, Ernest
Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Ashton, Joe
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Hunter, Adam


Atkinson, Norman
Eadie, Alex
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Edelman, Maurice
Jeger, Mrs. Lena


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Ellis, Tom
John, Brynmor


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Evans, Fred
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Ewing, Harry
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)


Bidwell, Sydney
Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham,S.)


Brown, Robert C.(N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)


Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
Judd, Frank


Buchan, Norman
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Kaufman, Gerald


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Ford, Ben
Kerr, Russell


Carmichael, Neil
Freeson, Reginald
Kinnock, Neil


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Gilbert, Dr. John
Lambie, David


Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Golding, John
Lamborn, Harry


Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)
Gourlay, Harry
Lamond, James


Concannon, J. D.
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Latham, Arthur


Crawshaw, Richard
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Lawson, George


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Leonard, Dick


Dalyell, Tam
Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Lestor, Miss Joan


Davidson, Arthur
Hardy, Peter
Lipton, Marcus


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Harper, Joseph
Lomas, Kenneth


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Loughlin, Charles


Deakins, Eric
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
McBride, Neil


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Horam, John
McCartney, Hugh




McElhone, Frank
Paget, R. T.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Machin, George
Palmer, Arthur
Taverne, Dick


Mackenzie, Gregor
Pardoe, John
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Mackintosh, John P.
Pavitt, Laurie
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Maclennan, Robert
Perry, Ernest G.
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Price, William (Rugby)
Tinn, James


McNamara, J. Kevin
Radice, Giles
Tope, Graham


Marquand, David
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Torney, Tom


Meacher, Michael
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Varley, Eric G.


Millan, Bruce
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Miller, Dr. M. S.
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Wallace, George


Milne, Edward
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Watkins, David


Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Sillars, James
Whitehead, Phillip


Murray, Ronald King
Skinner, Dennis
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Oakes, Gordon
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


O'Halloran, Michael
Spearing, Nigel
Woof, Robert


O'Malley, Brian
Stallard, A. W.



Orme, Stanley
Steel, David
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Oswald, Thomas
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Mr. Donald Coleman and Mr. James Hamilton.


Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)
Stott, Roger (Westhoughton)





NOES


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Gummer, J. Selwyn
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Gurden, Harold
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)


Atkins, Humphrey
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)


Awdry, Daniel
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Parkinson, Cecil


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Percival, Ian


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Haselhurst, Alan
Pink, R. Bonner


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Hawkins, Paul
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Bell, Ronald
Hill, S. James A. (South'pton, Test)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Benyon, W.
Hordern, Peter
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hornby, Richard
Raison, Timothy


Biffen, John
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Redmond, Robert


Biggs-Davison, John
Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Body, Richard
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Bossom, Sir Clive
Iremonger, T. L.
Rost, Peter


Bowden, Andrew
James, David
Russell, Sir Ronald


Braine, Sir Bernard
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Brewis, John
Jopling, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Shersby, Michael


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Kershaw, Anthony
Simeons, Charles


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Soref, Harold


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Speed, Keith


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Spence, John


Carlisle, Mark
Knox, David
Sproat, Iain


Channon, Paul
Lamont, Norman
Stanbrook, Ivor


Chapman, Sydney
Le Marchant, Spencer
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Stokes, John


Chichester-Clark, R.
MacArthur, Ian
Stuttaford, Dr Tom


Churchill, W. S.
McCrindle, R. A.
Sutcliffe, John


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
McLaren, Martin
Tapsell, Peter


Cockeram, Eric
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Cooke, Robert
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Cormack, Patrick
Maddan, Martin
Tebbit, Norman


Crouch, David
Madel, David
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.Jack
Mather, Carol
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Dean, Paul
Mawby, Ray
Tilney, John


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Tugendhat, Christopher


Dykes, Hugh
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Miscampbell, Norman
Waddington, David


Emery, Peter
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Eyre, Reginald
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Ward, Dame Irene


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Moate Roger
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hempstead)
Money, Ernie
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Wiggin, Jerry


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Monro, Hector
Wilkinson, John


Fookes, Miss Janet
Montgomery, Fergus
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Fowler, Norman
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Fox, Marcus
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Worsley, Marcus


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Mudd, David
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Gardner, Edward
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Younger, Hn. George


Gower, Raymond
Neave, Airey



Gray, Hamish
Noble, Rt. Hn Michael
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Green, Alan
Nott, John
Mr. Walter Glegg and Mr. Tim Fortescue.


Grylls, Michael
Onslow, Cranley




Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 1

NEW LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS IN SCOTLAND

Mr. Ross: I beg to move Amendment No. 283, in page 1, line 13, after 'as' insert:
'a metropolitan authority for the West as defined in subsection (4) below, and'

Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to take the following amendments, all, with the exception of the last, standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross):

'Part III


Metropolitan Authority
Area by reference to existing administrative areas


Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority.
The county of the city of Glasgow.



The county of Bute.



The county of Dunbarton.



The county of Lanark.



The county of Renfrew.



The county of Argyll (except the district of Ardnamurchan; the electoral divisions of Ballachulish and Kinlochleven).



The county of Ayr.



In the county of Stirling—the burgh of Kilsyth; Western No. 3 district: the electoral divisions of Kilsyth East, Kilsyth West.

PART IV


Regional Authority
Area by reference to existing administrative areas


Glasgow
…
The county of the city of Glasgow.




In the county of Dunbarton—the burghs of Bearsden, Clydebank, Milngavie; the district of Old Kilpatrick (except the electoral divisions of Bowling, Dunbarton).




In the county of Lanark—the burghs of Bishopsbriggs, Rutherglen; in the Eighth district the electoral divisions of Bankhead, Cambuslang Central, Cambuslang North, Hallside, Rutherglen, and those parts of Cambuslang South and Carmunnock electoral divisions lying outwith the designated area of East Kilbride New Town; in the Ninth district, the electoral divisions of Baillieston, Garrowhill, Mount Vernon and Carmyle, Springboig.


Lanarkshire
…
In the county of Dunbarton—the burghs of Cumbernauld, Kirkintilloch; the district of Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld.




The county of Lanark (except the burghs of Bishopsbriggs, Rutherglen; in the Eighth district, the electoral divisions of Bankhead, Cambuslang Central, Cambuslang North, Hallside, Rutherglen, and those parts of Cambuslang South and Carmunnock electoral divisions lying outwith the designated area of East Kilbride New Town; in the Ninth district, the electoral divisions of Baillieston, Garrowhill, Mount Vernon and Carmyle, Springboig).




In the county of Renfrew—the electoral division of Eaglesham.




In the county of Stirling—the burgh of Kilsyth; the Western No. 3 district; the electoral divisions of Kilsyth East, Kilsyth West.


Argyll and Clyde
…
The county of Argyll (except the district of Ardnamurchan; the electoral divisions of Ballachulish, Kinlochleven).




In the county of Dunbarton—the burghs of Dumbarton, Cove and Kilcreggan, Helensburgh; the districts of Helensburgh, Vale of Leven; the electoral divisions of Bowling, Dunbarton.




The county of Renfrew (except the First district).


Ayrshire and Arran
…
The county of Ayr.




In the county of Bute—the burgh of Millport; the districts of Arran Cumbrae."

No. 287, in Schedule 2, page 2, line 14, insert:
'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and'.

No. 284, in page 1, line 21, at end insert:
(4) The county of the city of Glasgow, the counties of Bute, Dunbarton, Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, part of the county of Agyll and part of the county of Stirling, shall be a local government area known as the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority, and shall comprise the areas described in column two of Part III of the said Schedule, being administrative areas existing immediately before the passing of this Act.

No. 285, in Schedule 1, page 144, leave out lines 1 to 13.

No. 286, in page 144, line 24, at end insert:

No. 288, in page 2, line 18, at end insert 'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority'.

No. 289, in page 2, line 20, after 'addition', insert:
'in the case of a region, islands area or district'.

No. 290, in Clause 4, page 3, line 36, at end insert:
'5A. The first ordinary election of councillors for the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority shall take place in 1974, the second such election shall take place in 1977; thereafter such elections shall take place every fourth year'.

No. 291, in Clause 5, page 3, line 41, at beginning insert:
'The Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and'.

No. 292, in Clause 23, page 12, line 5, after 'of' insert 'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority'.

No. 293, in page 12, line 9, after second 'he' insert 'Authority'.

No. 294, in clause 24, page 13, line 19, at end insert:
'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority'.

No. 295, in clause 28, page 15, line 23, after means' insert:
'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority, or'.

No. 296, in clause 56, page 32, leave out lines 4 to 21.

No. 297, in Clause 87, page 46, line 21, after 'means', insert:
'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority or'.

No. 298, in Clause 108, page 60, line 16, at end insert:
'(a) in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority, as the metropolitan rate;'.

No. 299, in page 60, line 25, at end insert metropolitan,'.

No. 300, in page 60, line 38, after second 'the', insert 'metropolitan,'.

No. 301, in Clause 109, page 61, line 3, after second 'the', insert 'the metropolitan rate, the'.

No. 302, in page 61, line 10, after 'year', insert:
'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and'.

No. 303, in page 61, line 12, after 'their', insert 'area or'.

No. 304, in page 61, line 12, after 'the', insert 'metropolitan or'.

No. 305, in Clause 110, page 61, line 42, at end insert:
'(4) The provisions of this section shall in relation to the metropolitan rate apply to regional councils and the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority as they apply to regional

councils and each district which falls within their region'.

No. 306, in Clause 119, page 69, leave out lines 44 and 45 and insert:
'(a) in the case of a contribution to the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority one-quarter and to the Regional Councils within the metropolitan area one-half,
(b) in the case of a contribution to any other Regional Council, three-quarters'.

No. 307, in Clause 131, page 76, line 3, at end insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area, the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 308, in Clause 135, page 78, line 34, at end insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area to the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 309, in page 78, line 37, after 'applies', insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area to the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 310, in page 78, line 42, after 'transferred', insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area to the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 311, in Clause 141, page 80, line 23, after 'transferred', insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area to the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 312, in Clause 145, page 85, line 38, after 'shall', insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area be the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 313, in Clause 147, page 88, line 13, leave out 'Regional Council' and insert 'Metropolitan Authority'.

No. 314, in page 88, line 14, after 'for' insert:
'the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area including'.

No. 315, in page 88, line 19, leave out 'Regional Council' and insert 'Metropolitan Authority'.

No. 316, in Clause 156, page 93, line 23, before 'Regional', insert:
'The Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and'.

No. 317, in page 93, line 27, after 'words', insert:
'The Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and'.

No. 318, in Clause 170, in page 99, line 4, after 'means', insert:
'in the case of the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area, the Strathclyde Metropolitan Authority and in every other case'.

No. 319, in page 99, line 5, at end insert:
'and in the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area the region of the authority shall be construed accordingly;'.

No. 320, in Schedule 23, page 227, line 7, after 'authority', insert:
'or in the case of regional planning proposals within the Strathclyde Metropolitan Area, the appropriate local authority functions'.

No. 321, in page 227, line 11, after 'authority', insert:
'or the local authority, as the case may be,'.

No. 270, in Clause 159, page 94, line 13, at end insert:
'except in the Strathclyde region where it shall be a district council',

standing in the name of the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel).

Mr. Ross: When the Wheatley Commission reported, one staggering fact emerged, that it proposed seven regions for Scotland but one of them would contain half the population of Scotland. This was the region of the West, centring upon Glasgow. The region stretched from Oban down the coast to beyond Girvan, with the heart and centre at Glasgow, and to many of us a stumbling block to such reorganisation was the fact that such a big region could not possibly be termed "local government". We felt that there would be an element of remoteness in such a region, particularly when we learned that it would deal with personal services like education and social work.
As Secretary of State, I found it difficult to agree to this part of the Wheatley Report but when the present Government produced their version in this Bill, following their White Paper, we discovered that, big as it was, the west region was to be even bigger. The Government added a considerable part of Argyll, the islands of Cowal, Tiree, Mull, Islay, Jura and Colon-say and the whole area of Cowal and Kintyre, centred on Campbeltown.
But in the context of the balance of the rest of Scotland this region just is not on. More than half the population of Scotland is to be under one education authority.
The obvious step from that—and I am surprised that there has been no amendment to that effect—is to have one education authority for the whole of Scotland. The new set-up is contrary to the advice given to the Royal Commission by the Scottish Education Department, and I doubt whether there is a single civil servant in the Department who agrees with this structure.
I sought to find a way out. One of the ways considered was to retain what was claimed as the essential feature of the west region—strategic planning, covering the whole of the estuary from Glasgow north-west and north and from Glasgow west and south. I suggested in Committee that we might have one metropolitan authority on the basis of an ad hoc committee indirectly elected. Many of my colleagues disagreed with me. We had had enough of ad hoc committees.
Since then, in Committee, we have taken decisions which, whether we like it or not, ensure we shall have ad hoc bodies in Fife—to deal with the estuaries of the Tay and the Forth. Indeed, the Government themselves threw aside, in relation to the Highlands, the strong plea by Wheatley for one Highland area authority for dealing with economic and industrial development. If ever there was a time for that, because of North Sea oil developments, it is now. The Government did not have that. Instead of having one Highland region we have a truncated Highland region and three Islands areas—and there are now so many islands in the west region that I am beginning to wonder whether we should call that an islands region as well.
We have reached the serious situation that unless we do something about it we shall have this west region unwieldy in itself and unwieldy in relation to the rest of Scotland, an unbalanced pattern of regional authorities. So I am proposing an amendment to meet the points which my hon. Friends have put forward, and I am suggesting that we should have a third tier, and that that third tier should be an elected tier to retain the benefits of the principles of wider planning seen by the members of the Committee as well as Wheatley to be essential, to deal with strategic planning, questions of major industrial development, Glasgow overspill, transportation, roads, traffic


management, ferry services, water, sewerage and flood prevention.
We could have the first election in May 1974, for one term of three years, and the next election in 1977.
The regional authorities would be four—Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Argyll and Clyde, taking in Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire and Ayrshire and Arran. Their functions would be the remaining functions presently given to the region—education, social work, regional housing, fire, police, valuation, the countryside, tourism, and the other functions.
An aspect I want to stress is the fact—I hope that the Glasgow Herald will take note—that below that will be the districts already in the Bill. We do not wipe out the districts. What we effectively do is provide a new metropolitan authority which is elected, and divide between it and the four regions the regional functions, but give to the middle tier the personal services, particularly those of education and social work.
That would get rid of the stumbling block which I found when I was Secretary of State and which has not been removed. The Secretary of State himself, right up to the Committee said that he was searching for some way to get over the business of this monster authority which would dominate the whole of Scotland and would not give us really local government and in whose area there would inevitably be a feeling of remoteness, which would remain.
So that is my proposal. Within the boundary of this misnamed Strathclyde region it would provide for an authority discharging only those functions directly related to major strategic planning, and retaining the estuarial planning aspect. The four regional authorities would be discharging important services in respect of which the personal touch is absolutely essential. To try to deal with the educational problems from Tiree to Turnberry in an area which contains all the educational problems of Scotland—Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Renfrewshire, parts of Ayrshire—is to get—

It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.

Ordered,

That the Local Government (Scotland) Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Clegg.]

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

Mr. Ross: To put all of these together into one region is to invite disaster.
The Secretary of State should know that the consultative committees that have been preparing for the transition are in deep trouble with the mass of detail involved. I do not think that any delay will help them. The difficulty arises in the almost impracticable task being laid upon an authority for such an area. I plead with the right hon. Gentleman to think again. The regional authorities dealing with these services are still large enough to meet the Wheatley criteria for regional authorities. They are compact and reasonable units of local government. The district authorities will continue with the functions already granted to them.
If we do not take such a step I am sure that not only will there be chaos in the transitional period but there will be chaos when this system starts. There will be disaster and a lack of confidence in the new set-up. This may become a touchstone for the future of this form of local government reorganisation.
Undoubtedly someone will say that we are interfering with the Wheatley principle of two tiers. When the Government made a change in respect of the Highlands, the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland they were departing from Wheatley just as they were departing from Wheatley when they made a change in respect of Fife. If it was argued then that Parliament, in making such changes, was keeping in touch with the real situation on the ground I do not think that we can ignore the fact that, even if it means a departure from Wheatley in respect of certain aspects and functions, by having an elected third tier we would be doing the same thing again. We shall be meeting a real problem facing us in local government. We are forced into this position by the size of the area.
People may be asking why we should have these areas for the new regions. They coincide with the area health


boards which have been set up in Scotland. If it is all right for the organisation of health and medical services, it fits in with what was said in the Green Paper on the administration of the reorganisation of Scottish Health Services, accepted by this Government although published by the last Government. This spoke of promoting co-ordination between the board and local authorities and the advantages to be gained if the areas of the board and the local authorities were conterminous. The areas involved here will be conterminous. Bearing in mind all that depends upon this, not just the prestige of the Government and Parliament but the need to meet the real needs of local Government, particularly on those touchy subjects of education and social work, I hope that this amendment will be accepted.

Mr. Bruce Millan: I support briefly but strongly everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said. A major criticism of the Wheatley Commission's Report is that the organisation it provides subordinates everything to the planning considerations.
A number of objections have been raised to the Strathclyde region which Wheatley recommended and which the Government have incorporated in the Bill. There is the obvious one that, compared with other regions, Strathclyde is far too big. It will dominate the Scottish local authority structure, and there is considerable apprehension about that. There is apprehension about the difficulties of organisation within the region in view of its formidable size and its geographical range and disparity. There is the objection, to which I attach particular importance, that it will be extremely difficult effectively to organise education and social work as personal services in this area in a way which will satisfy the people that the authority understands their problems and is sensitive to the needs of local areas. From extensive inquiries of people who are involved in education and social services, I have found virtually no one in favour of a region the size of Strathclyde.
More generally, all the local authorities in the area with the exception of Glasgow are against the Strathclyde re-

gion. People with widely differing political opinions but with vast experience of local Government administration are virtually united in opposition to the proposed Strathclyde region. We cannot set that opinion aside as being of no special importance.
All that the Government have done to meet these fears has been to provide that in the Strathclyde region, and only in the Strathclyde region, the regional authority shall produce a scheme of education and social work administration for the approval of the Secretary of State. The fact that the Government have inserted that provision in the Bill is sufficient demonstration that they recognise that there will be difficult problems in education and social work if Strathclyde stands as it is at present.
This provision is temporary. If the Bill goes through as it stands and the provision remainds, there will be in the West of Scotland a scheme of educational administration which virtually repeats the present educational administration pattern but which will be under the overriding authority of Strathclyde regional headquarters. I am sure that will be an ineffective and unsatisfactory form of educational administration.
What makes the Government's proposals even more unsatisfactory is that it is in the West of Scotland that the major educational problems, particularly in teacher supply, arise. It is also the area which contains the authorities with the most severe social problems and the greatest difficulties in organising social work. There is a good deal of dissatisfaction with the organisation of social work in Glasgow arising from the massive size of the problem and the difficulty of attracting suitable staff. In the area that has these problem authorities—I am not being critical of the authorities—it is proposed to put all the authorities together and to create an enormous authority which will have massive and in some respects insurmountable problems to overcome. There is an alternative solution, and it is the one provided in these amendments.
I have always supported the three-tier solution for the West of Scotland. That was my view when I was at the Scottish Office, and it has not changed. I have always been in favour of the three-tier


arrangement proposed in the amendments.
The change is that the other authorities in the West of Scotland, again with the exception of Glasgow, now favour the solution in the amendments. At one time the authorities in the West wanted a rather different solution. The proposals which they put forward, in one case abolishing the present district councils, I found unsatisfactory. But as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock said, the solution that we have now includes the district councils as they are at present with the full range of district functions. It provides for the overall strategic planning and associated services to be dealt with in the Strathclyde area as a whole through the metropolitan authority. But it has the tremendous advantage of giving the whole range of functions, including these very important services of education and social work, to four regional authorities which fit neatly into the pattern of health board administration and by themselves are a solution designed to perform the functions which the amendments allocate to them.
In Committee there were objections that the metropolitan authority was to be only indirectly elected. At the time I felt that if a system had been proposed in Committee like the present one involving three sets of elections, that would have been the objection which a certain number of members of the Committee would have fastened on to as being the provision which damaged irretrievably the system being put forward. As it turned out, it was the fact of indirect election which was seized upon by the opponents of the scheme. That again is dealt with in this series of amendments.
As for the necessity for three elections, it is an insult to the intelligence of the Scottish electorate to suggest that it would be impossible to operate such a system involving three elections. That is absurd.
The system before us now is the one that I have supported all along. It meets all the major objectives of Wheatley in terms of planning and the rest. It gives a better solution to this very important area of the West of Scotland. I hope even at this late stage that the Government will accept it.

Mr. Edward Taylor: The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and his hon. Friends obviously have put a great deal of thought into their very interesting proposal, and there is no doubt that what they suggest has the support of a large number of people in the west of Scotland. However, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) said, this view is not generally shared by the Glasgow authority, although even in the Glasgow Town Council a number of councillors think that what is proposed is a good idea.
I wish to draw attention to two special difficulties involved in a three-tier arrangement which have not been fully dealt with in the persuasive arguments that we have heard from the Opposition. The first is that obviously it would be a complicated arrangement. However, what concerns me most is the situation in the metropolitan authority in terms of planning staff and transport staff, and what rights it will have to demand information from the second-tier authority, the regional authority.
In making arrangements for what is loosely termed "strategic planning", it is clear that the metropolitan authority will have to have at its fingertips all the information about the general planning to be conducted by the various regional authorities. It might find that the attitude of Glasgow and Lanark and of Argyll and Clyde completely different. A very dangerous situation would arise if we gave the planning functions to the regional authorities, Glasgow and Lanarkshire, only to find the metropolitan authority demanding a great deal of complicated and detailed information on matters about which it required information in order to reach its various decisions. That could involve a grave clash in the arrangements of an authority.
10.15 p.m.
For example, what does the regional director of planning in Glasgow do if his authority is demanding a great deal of information urgently for a decision that it has to take and he has instructions or requests coming from the metropolitan authority wanting a great deal of information for strategic planning

decisions that it has to take? A similar position could arise with transport planning, future housing developments, and so on.
The alternative is to have a highly qualified planning staff in both the metropolitan and the regional authorities. If we are to have this arrangement and we find that the staff in the various regional authorities and the conveners thereof do not agree, then, unless we have perfect men working in all the various authorities who are prepared to co-operate all the time for the common good, we could have a series of running battles upon which the Secretary of State would be called to adjudicate.
Although this is obviously a carefully thought out scheme which has great attractions, particularly regarding the proposed Glasgow regional authority, my fear is that the functions proposed to be allocated to the regional authority would create a non-stop conflict in which the Secretary of State would have to act as a constant referee.

Mr. James Sillars: I shall not attempt to reply to some of those allegedly major points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) because they were administrative trivia. He has sought desperately for some means to justify his stand against these amendments. If that is the best that he can come up with, I suggest he had better go away and, instead of writing that article on Friday night, do some thinking about the subject.
We are discussing plans for the reorganisation of local government operated and manned by people with common sense and good will on behalf of people in the Strathcylde area. Therefore, any information required by any tier of government, whether it be up or down the way, would obviously be readily forthcoming from whichever level the request was made.
There has been much debate over many years in Scotland as a whole, and certainly in the west of Scotland in particular, about the advisability of a Strathclyde region as defined by the Government or, indeed, by Wheatley. There are still exceptions. Some people have remained true to the Wheatley principles,


and I concede immediately that others are still dazzled by the concept of strategic planning. However, with those two exceptions, most people agree that it is indisputable that Strathclyde is far too large and will be far too remote from the people when we examine the situation within the context of Scotland.
There is almost universal agreement—again with those two exceptions—that, because of the size of Strathclyde compared with other authorities, Scottish local government is now seriously out of balance.
The amendments are designed to improve the situation within the strictures of the Report stage of the Bill. Neither my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) nor I suggest that the amendments are absolutely 100 per cent. ideal, but they are the best alternative that we can offer to the scheme laid down by the Government, given that we are on Report.
In Committee strong arguments were advanced against the amendment that I moved for a three-tier basis because of the non-elected aspect of the top tier. However, there was wide agreement with the principle of a three-tier system as a solution to the Strathclyde situation.
The amendments seek to allocate to an elected top tier those functions which can be taken out of the personal services of local government and discharged by people who are not subject to the enormous pressures of those representing constituents on the personal services, such as social work and education.
The second tier as devised by the amendments makes them of much more reasonable size for the purpose of operating such services as social work, education, the police and the fire service. Nothing since the completion of the Committee stage of the Bill has made me alter my opinion that an authority which embraces half the police force of Scotland is far too large and too dangerous in our society.
The districts in the Strathclyde region are not touched by the amendments. My right hon. Friend asked the Glasgow Herald to take note of that. It may be within the knowledge of every hon. Member present that on the day after our amendments were tabled the Glasgow Herald published a leader attacking

them, and by doing so misinformed the paper's readers. It may not be within the knowledge of the House that a good friend of mine, Mr. William Paterson, the county convener of Ayrshire, attempted by a letter to correct what the Glasgow Herald had said but, in its traditional way and in keeping with the reputation of that paper, the letter failed to appear in its columns. That was a piece of sharp practice on the part of the Glasgow Herald which I hope will not be repeated.
With the two exceptions that I mentioned, I do not think that anyone can object to the amendments on the basis that they go against the principles of Wheatley. The Bill, as the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) knows, is not Wheatley, and never has been. There is to be a Border authority, which was not suggested by Wheatley. There is to be Argyll in the west, which again is not Wheatley. There are to be all-purpose authorities in the islands, which again were not suggested by Wheatley. We shall need joint boards of some description to be provided by statute or agreement—perhaps informal agreement—between Fife and Tayside, and Fife and the Forth region—again a departure from Wheatley. The Government have provided river purification boards, which represents yet another departure from Wheatley.
The amendments are seeking to give strategic and other aspects of planning their full weight and importance in Scottish local government. They are trying to do that—no more and no less—but they do not make the fundamental error which the Government have made so far of subordinating every other service to the planning functions of local government. Everything in its place has a place, and the amendments, which seek to put everything in their place, given the problems that we face on Report, ought to command the support of the House.

Mr. Grimond: The proposed creation of a large Strathclyde area is clearly of importance to every Scottish Member and to everyone in Scotland. I can see that there are certain arguments for it, but I should have thought that they were based largely on the need for planning certain aspects of the economy. Where


I differ from the Government's approach is that it seems to be putting the cart before the horse to consider how this type of planning will be carried out before we know what Kilbrandon will say and what the Government will say about its report.
It may be that much of the planning for which it is considered necessary to have a large authority in the west of Scotland will ultimately prove to be the kind of function that can be done by a Scottish Government. To consider this aspect of local government in detail before we know what Kilbrandon will say, or what the Government's views will be on it, is to do things the wrong way round.
I am not one of those who think that all the regions, districts and island areas in Scotland must be of about the same pattern or the same size—far from it—but I feel that the creation of this large authority will lead to difficulties.
I want to refer particularly to Amendment No. 270, in my name and the names of my hon. Friends, which seeks to place responsibility for social work on the districts. The Government may accept the amendments in the name of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross)—I do not intend to go into that—but we are to some extent dealing with the same difficulty. There may also be a similar amendment to deal with education, but I have put down this amendment about social work and it is to that that I wish principally to speak.
Whatever else may be said, this is certainly a field for which the Strathclyde area will be much too big. As has been said, the existing social work services deal largely with individuals. It is very important that they should be felt to be conducted within the ambit of the individual's life by people to whom the individual can have ready access. The Secretary of State may say that that can all be worked out under the schemes produced by the different authorities, but it seems a laborious process to create a difficulty and then to try to solve it.
As it stands, the Bill gives the impression that social work, in the Government's eyes, can be carried on within the whole population of the west of Scotland. So far as case work goes, that is a misconception, and the responsibility should be given to districts.
But an even stronger argument is that social work will become more and more concerned with the community. It will be preventive by improving the whole standards of the community and not simply by dealing with case work after individuals have fallen into trouble through one reason or another. For this purpose, it must be centred on the community.
Anyone in Scotland knows that there are very strong communities in the west of Scotland. There are strong communities under the very shadow of Glasgow. I am amazed at how Paisley and Greenock have maintained their personality and community feeling although the area will soon be built up more or less all down the Clyde. In areas further out, the feeling is even stronger.
It is a wholly misconceived view of social work to think that it should be taken out of the natural community. On the contrary, its only hope of success is to be centred in the natural community. Again, if the Secretary of State says that that is not his intention and that, under the schemes drawn up, the communities will be able to have powers devolved to them, I would still ask why it is necessary to give the impression in the Bill that he believes in a further centralisation of community work, the withdrawal of the main decisions within the community and the disruption of a great deal of good work that is going on in certain parts of Scotland.
Therefore, while there are certainly difficulties about the creation of this huge region in general, what I particularly want to say to the Secretary of State—perhaps I have misunderstood something in the Bill and this will not happen—is that it seems a very mistaken step to remove the social work, which is so concerned with the community, from the very communities on which it depends. I should be grateful if he could explain whether that will happen and, if so, what the reasons are for bringing it about.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: I have a great deal of sympathy for what the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) is trying to do. Strathclyde is obviously too big a region. I have always said so and I still say so. If this proposal goes through, I have not the slightest doubt


that within 10 years we shall have to alter the arrangement.
I may be asked what my solution is. It is this: do not have this Bill at all. I have yet to find anyone who really wants it; I must put that on record. But if we have to have it, the solution is to leave Glasgow as it is—an all-purpose authority.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Mackintosh: I have some sympathy with the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison). The more I look at the Bill and the more I hear about it from the Government Front Bench, the less happy I am about the whole thing. The basic principles on which the Bill is based are now a total botch due to the Government's weakness, and I have much doubt whether the Bill is worth having at all.
The interesting point is that there was a long debate in Committee about the size of the western region, which took quite a number of sittings. I wonder why it has been re-raised on Report. Apart from the skill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) in wording the amendment, the basic reason why it has been re-raised is the Government's wetness in giving way on the question of Fife. By giving way on the principle that the Wheatley Report enunciated, of city regions, which would have divided Fife, by simply accepting the argument that Fife had a big enough population to fit into the various numerical requirements that Wheatley set out, the Government re-opened the whole question of the west of Scotland. If one is not to have city regions in the east, why have them in the west? Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and Ayrshire all have enough people to fulfil the numerical requirement. If one takes the view of local government that the present Government took in relation to England, that one does not want a city region basis but chunks of population to do the services at an economical rate, there is no case for the Strathclyde region. They have led to the re-opening of this question by allowing their defeat in Committee on Fife to become a fixed situation in the Bill. I gather that the Government do not intend to undo this or to re-open the matter at this stage.
The Bill is based on no principle at all. It is not based on the Wheatley city region principle or the principle to which the Government have turned in England, of tight metropolitan units, with amalgamated counties leading to sufficient population outside the metropolitan units at least to give a smaller number of units of local government.

Mr. John Smith: Perhaps my hon. Friend would explain how the city region was exemplified in the Highland region, the South-West region and the Central region of Scotland.

Mr. Mackintosh: I should be glad to do that. My hon. Friend has read Wheatley and he knows the argument perfectly clearly. It was not exemplified. The point was that the Government took this as the most desirable form of region, because they stressed the importance, above all, of the strategic planning function, on which the transport system, economic development, land-use planning, overspill and the overall pattern of distribution of major functions within the area were based. They said that this was best organised on a city region basis.
The city region basis fitted five areas, two of them absolutely clearly: Dundee and the hinterland, and Aberdeen and the hinterland. Edinburgh and the Forth region and Glasgow and the Clyde region fitted into the situation. They may have sub-divided Central Scotland but they based it on the Grangemouth-Falkirk complex, saying that this provided an adequate centre. The Highlands did not fit into this and cannot be made to do so.
The Government said that the economic problem of Highland development in strategic planning terms gave the Highlands sufficient cohesion to keep it as a unit rather than to attempt to fit it into one of the patterns into which it did not fit. If one were conducting this principle properly, and pushing it furthest on the question of the Borders, one would have a Carlisle and Solway region and, at the other end, a region including Berwick-upon-Tweed; but it is too radical for the present Government or the previous Government to look across the Border for their organisation.
The original Wheatley proposals went as far as could be gone in pushing the strategic city region concept for Scotland. It was on this that this huge area of


Western Scotland was based. I accept that this is a very big area. This is not, however, a disqualification in local government terms, if one stuck to the principle of the Wheatley Report. After all, the Opposition have taken pride, since the years of Herbert Morrison, in the Greater London Council. Even now the Inner London Education Authority is a bigger education authority and is running more in the way of education than is being proposed for the Greater Glasgow area.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: My hon. Friend will recollect that the ILEA does not cover an area quite so diverse as Argyll and South Lanarkshire.

Mr. Mackintosh: I am not defending the inclusion of Argyll, to which we shall come later. This was not proposed in the Wheatley Report. On the other hand, it covers a larger area in numerical terms. There is no argument, certainly taking the English example, why one cannot have a very large population covered by one authority provided there is reasonable decentralisation of administration.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) pointed out the importance of social communities for social work. This is true. There are at present amalgamated social work units which devolve to the natural community. My constituency is one where this happens with the organisation of social work.
It is arguable strongly that the number of facilities which must be provided in terms of institutions requires a larger catchment area than the communities in which one operates the casework and the casework load. All this can be fitted well into such an area.
I accept the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock, that once the Government abandoned the Wheatley principle inasmuch as it can be applied to Scotland and accepted in Fife, due to political pressure and because of what happened in Committee, the argument that when there are 300,000 people together in a group we can have a local government unit, it opened the way to claims from places in the west of Scotland with traditional local government units to the effect "If it is all right for Fife, why is it not all right for all the areas around Scotland?" That is

the principle on which the English Local Government Act has been based.
The Government must decide whether they will yield to whoever pushes on this view or whether they have a sensible concept of local government left. If they have that, I have not heard it tonight.

Mr. John Smith: My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) has misunderstood the nature of the amendment, which he attacked. The amendment proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) proposes that there should be a metropolitan authority not for the city of Glasgow but for the whole of the Strathclyde region. The amendment proposes that, although there may be a case—I am not convinced of it—for the strategic economic planning of the area described in the Bill as Strathclyde, there is not a case for every other service being subordinate to planning. One means by this that the whole concept of Strathclyde was created because of strategic economic planning.
I do not believe that the new local authorities will be allowed to have the power for strategic economic planning that the Government envisage or that Wheatley thought might be possible, because the Secretary of State will intervene and exercise his power as the economic overlord of Scotland whenever he thinks necessary. Do we seriously imagine that the future of Hunterston, for example, will be decided by the Strathclyde authority? Of course it will not be. It will be decided by the Cabinet and by the Secretary of State as a member of the Cabinet implementing governmental policy. [Interruption.] I am being optimistic. I am taking it as a hypothetical example.
We are setting up an authority geared to do a job which it will not be allowed to do. We are sacrificing our personal services on an altar which is not worth the sacrifice, because there will not be room for manoeuvre for these local authorities because of the position of the central Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian has the curious notion that the only reason the amendment has been tabled is a certain decision taken about Fife. My hon. Friend seems to think that just because a certain decision was taken about Fife that invalidates


the whole Wheatley concept. It does not. That stands or falls on its merits.
The amendment was tabled in an attempt to solve the problem of government in the west of Scotland. It has little to do with Fife. I do not think there is any magic in sitting down one night and saying "We will have city regions in Scotland". I did not hear one justification from my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian for the concept of city regions. He kept saying "It is planning. There is something to be said for a city region". Why is it good for planning to have a city region? Of course, those of us who have constituencies in the west of Scotland and try to envisage how the educational problems and the social work problems are going to be solved are horrified at the thought of the Strathclyde region. There will be administrative decentralisation. Much of what happens in educational matters will continue as at present. There will be sub-directors of education for areas of the west of Scotland under a supremo who will have so many schools under him that he will not know what they are called. There will be more teachers in the Strathclyde region than there are pupils in some of the other regions of Scotland. It will be unmanageable.
I am worried that there will be administrative decentralisation but no bureaucratic decentralisation to follow it. Democracy will be at the centre. There will be a super committee in charge of the region dealing with half of Scotland, and the administration is decentralised. I suspect that the officials who are operating at the decentralised level will not be subject to proper democratic scrutiny and control because the administration unit will not match the unit of democratic control. There has been too little thought about democracy in the Bill.
We have to get more than just a good system of planning and administration. We have to make it consistent with democracy in which people in localities can make their views felt in the centres of power. It is because these problems have not been solved by the Government's proposals that we should support the amendment. The amendment was not acceptable in Committee, but improvements have since been made to it. I agree with the

hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) that we have not solved the problem of the west of Scotland. But the tragedy is that within a short time we shall have to try to solve it again. In the meantime there will be undemocratic administration in the region.

Mr. Douglas: I give an undertaking during this stage of the Bill that this is the first time that I have spoken and that it will also be the last. My reason for being reticent on the other parts of the Bill is simply that I believe that parts of it have a certain durability, and my reason for distaste with the west of Scotland, if not with the whole, is that the region of Strathclyde lacks even the aura of durability.
Although reform of local government in the past in Scotland has lasted for about 50 years I do not believe that the reform in the west of Scotland will last 10 years. In a short period the whole fabric of local government, if it can be called local government, in the Strathclyde region will deteriorate, if not disintegrate, and we shall have to try to patch up the system. I hope that because of what happens in the west of Scotland we shall not feel compelled to interfere in and reform the whole of local government in Scotland in five or 10 years' time.
Many hon. Members have referred to the planning function. As the Minister for Transport Industries said on Friday, one of the things we have to remember about planners is that they believe that they have a degree of immortality which, if it does not make them completely immortal, gives them the impression that they are going to have at least three times the allotted lifespan of normal individuals. Other people have to live with the planning decisions. Everything else in the west of Scotland has to be squeezed into a space in a jigsaw that the planners have carved out. I do not see this.
10.45 p.m.
Under the 1972 Act everything of major importance will be called in by the Secretary of State. He will have to make a decision on overall stragetic planning for Scotland. I do not see how it will be possible to take a decision of major importance, such as the siting of an oil refinery in the West of Scotland, that will not be called in by the Secretary of State. I cannot understand why we


must distort the other important functions of local government to fit the idea of strategic planning.
If there was a case for strategic planning in the west of Scotland in 1969, before the massive and welcome discoveries of oil, there is an equal, if not greater, case for strategic planning in the east of Scotland. When we wind up with two or three regions, we should take the logical step and say that in the 1970s, moving into the 1980s, strategic planning should be the function of the Secretary of State, in legal as well as practical terms.
Although it was published in 1969, the Wheatley Report has dated very quickly. I do think we can redress the balance in the Bill. I do not think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) would claim that his skilfully drafted amendment is perfect, but it is certainly within the compass of the Bill, and gives us an opportunity to try to avoid inflicting on the people of the west of Scotland a form of local government that will not meet their distinct local needs. It will not meet the educational needs. We cannot have an education authority embracing half of Scotland's population, even though it is said that the responsibility will somehow be devolved. A similar argument applies to important aspects of social work.
Perhaps more important, the Wheatley doctrine having been breached, the people of the west of Scotland will not he content to see that the only part of Scotland that remains inviolate is Fife, when it has to go through an administrative uproar.
I should like briefly to say something about my own constituency, because I do not intend to speak again in the debate. The Wheatley estuarial argument apparently applies for the whole of Scotland. Because of the Government's acceptance of that argument, with which I broadly agree, Kincardine is taken out of the central region and is in Fife. It is a small town closely allied to the central region, and it was in that region. Although there might be difficulties, I should like the Secretary of State to discuss with the local authorities involved whether the estuarial argument, the principle of Wheatley, can at least stretch

across the Kincardine Bridge from one part of my constituency into the region of Fife.
We have an opportunity in the amendment partially to adjust the balance. It will not be a complete adjustment. If we do not take the opportunity, the House will certainly regret it. More important, the people of the west of Scotland will have to put up with a bad decision, made because the Government have proved inflexible and have been closely thirlled to concepts of strategic and economic planning which might meet a desk survey but do not meet the needs of local democracy.

Mr. Lambie: I support the amendment. Further, I am greatly in agreement with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison). The Bill should be thrown out. I am glad to find some support. I have been saying for four and a half years that the concept of local government reform based on the principle of greater areas is wrong. During the last stages of the reorganisation proposals more and more people are beginning to agree that such reform is wrong. It is becoming understood that the idea that there was something fundamentally wrong with local government in Scotland was a suggestion put forward by people who wanted to destroy local democracy and local government in Scotland.
I support Amendment No. 283 because at this stage it is the best possible amendment with which to try to gain something from the ideas of Wheatley and from the ideas put forward in the White Paper of February of last year—namely, reform of local government in Scotland. In expressing my support I shall approach the argument from a different line. Until now we have heard arguments on the basis that personal local government services will be too far away from the customers and that by removing such services—for example, education and social work—from those who would be using them we shall be denying them a fundamental principle of democracy.
I shall turn the argument round to another argument that goes through the whole of the Wheatley Report and the White Paper to which I have referred. Most of the people in the Labour Party supported the principles contained within


the Wheatley Report on the basis of estuarial planning. They did so on the assumption that when the bigger areas were established more financial power would be given to those areas by central Government.
Throughout the whole of the Wheatley Report, in spite of the fact that by the terms of its remit it was not allowed to discuss finance, the suggestion appears that if we are prepared to accept larger local government areas there would be a decentralisation of national government finance. The Wheatley Report states:
We cannot overlook the crucial relevance to our own recommendations of seeing a proper financial system for local government.
I could accept the Strathclyde region, with all its imperfections, from a democratic point of view if Strathclyde were given complete control of its finances, if it were given the right to raise its own taxation and to spend its money in the way that it thought best on various personal services such as education and social work.
The Government conditioned local authority representatives. In that respect I have a tremendous criticism of local councillors. They were conned by Wheatley and the Government. They were told that they would receive financial control. They were prepared to give up a lot of the democratic principles which have always been part of Scottish local government to obtain greater financial control.
In February 1971 the Government issued their White Paper, paragraph 67 of which said:
The Government accept … that the proposals for local government reorganisation are incomplete without a thorough re-examination of local government finance.
Here we are discussing the final stages of local government reorganisation, and we have not yet had, as the Government promised in 1971, a further re-examination of local government finances. Lord Wheatley in his maiden speech in another place said:
If you are not prepared to face up to the consequences on finance and structure, then you have no right to seek the counterpart"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 23rd March 1971 Vol. 316, c. 835.]
At that stage he was telling the Government that they had to consider local government finance as well as local gov-

ernment reorganisation and structure. We have not had any discussion on local government finance. Yet we are to have the principles of Wheatley forced on us.
A number of hon. and right hon. Members have made the point that the Government have departed from Wheatley in the original Bill and in the Bill as it stands now. They have departed from Wheatley completely on structure and have not considered the Wheatley recommendations on local government finance. Yet they still seek to ram this down the throats of the people of the west of Scotland. They are still to have Strathclyde. A lot of my hon. Friends say that this is Wheatley, it is Labour Party policy and it must be supported. They say we shall be going against party policy in supporting the amendment moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). They have not yet grasped that we are not dealing with Wheatley.
Until we have a reorganisation of local government finance we cannot say that we can reorganise the local government structure. My hon. Friends who have taken this view are wrong and should reconsider their former arguments and instead put forward arguments in support of the idea of local government finance reorganisation. If the Government do not accede to these arguments my hon. Friends have no right to support the Government on Strathclyde. They must support the amendment. I am against the concept of Strathclyde. I do not like the name. It reminds me of too many lords. I would rather call it the West of Scotland because that is what it is. It is the centre of Scotland.
The burgh of Saltcoats will declare UDI if these proposals go through. It is the only way we shall get control of our local finances and make a better job of it than my hon. Friends from Glasgow have done. I would be prepared to support this amendment, not only on financial but on democratic grounds. We cannot have more than half the people of Scotland in a local government area and call it local government. I would accent the principle, if the Government were to put it forward, of considering the whole of Scotland a local government area.
I would be in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) on this. It


would be better to have Scotland as a local government area than to have half of Scotland as a local government area and the rest of the country divided into minor regions. The Secretary of State is being unfair to Strathclyde by putting forward these proposals.
11.0 p.m.
Compare the number of councillors per head of the electorate in this West Central region of Scotland with the number of councillors per head of the electorate in the rest of Scotland and what do we find? In my own area in Ayrshire we shall have eight regional councillors; that is, one regional councillor to represent 18,000 voters. That is not local democracy. Compare that with what is to happen in the Secretary of State's constituency. Nairn will have two regional councillors; that is, one regional councillor to represent 3,000 electors. That is in a Tory area. In a Tory area only 3,000 voters are needed to elect one councillor; in a Labour area 18,000 voters are needed to get one councillor. Talk of gerrymandering in Northern Ireland! We are gerrymandering now with the Government's proposals for local government in Scotland.
The time is now opportune to throw out the principles contained in this Bill. As a start we can support my right hon. Friend's amendments, however imperfect they may be.

Mr. Russell Johnston: There are a great many strands in these arguments, many of which are contradictory. I would remind the House that the Wheatley Commission reached the conclusion that there should be a west region, to give the description ascribed to it by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie). That conclusion was reached only gradually; it was not dreamed up overnight, as the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith) was saying it was. It was a conclusion towards which we were pushed inevitably.
We were asked to try to reform local government. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said there cannot be local government in the country if one of the local authorities is half of Scotland; that then government would no longer be local and would be too impersonal. That may be. There are two factors; one is popu-

lation, the other is geography. If we are talking in this instance of half Scotland we are talking of population. We are also talking of reform, not only for 10 years but for possibly 40 years or 50 years. In the changing economic situation there may be a considerable shift in population distribution. It is not easy to draw the lines, and that is one point to remember in the first place.
Secondly, to underline that, we shall undoubtedly be dealing with a fast-changing situation not only economically but in terms of all the services. What is shied away from now may be perfectly acceptable in 10 or even five years' time.
I am not making a political point when I say I find it slightly amusing that on the Labour benches there should be so much stickiness about planners. I am not looking particularly at the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North, who appears bemused, but there have been attacks on the planners. The hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) launched himself into one with some enthusiasm.
What is planning? What is it all about? It is about a lot of things hon. Members of the Labour Party believe in. It is about a lot of things hon. Members on both sides of the House accept. It is about the rational working out of resources, the rational integration of the various functions and services to improve the quality of life. That is what it is about.

Mr. John Smith: Before the hon. Member launches himself too far on this I would like him to be clear about the nature of my objection. I said I do not believe that the central Government would surrender the planning powers of central Government to local government. I would go further: I do not think they ought to, either.

Mr. Johnston: I will deal with that in a moment. It relates to what the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said, which was a fair point.
I do not think that the attack on the Wheatley concept because it gives pre-eminence to planning is justifiable. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) said that we ought at least to be talking about a local government set of services manned by people of good sense and good will. I think that all these


rather scarey things which people keep saying about bureaucrats and planners with no sensitivity or understanding or knowledge of local conditions contain a considerable amount of exaggeration and are not a fair reflection of the quality of the work we get from officials in local government and, indeed, also in central Government social services, operating on a much bigger scale.

Mr. Sillars: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not unfair to say that people of good will can make mistakes because of the bureaucratic nature of the machinery in which they find themselves? Does not he quite frequently join me in criticising civil servants for not discharging their functions properly outwith the South-East area of the United Kingdom? In doing so, we do not cast reflections on their good will or lack of good will.

Mr. Johnston: I concede that that is a fair point, but the example the hon. Gentleman quoted was on a larger scale. However, I sustain the argument that, in the context of Strathclyde, officials responsible for planning as opposed to the elected representatives are not dealing, in my opinion, with an impossibly large populated area.
The hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North, said that the central Government would not yield up any of their financial resources. Throughout the Wheatley discussions, we asked, "What is local government?" Presumably, in the simplest definition, it is not central Government. If we produce a structure which gives control over local areas rather than to the centre, we are retaining local government rather than central Government.
Despite what the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire has said, there is no doubt that local government had been increasingly subject to so much detailed supervision from the centre that it had ceased to be the sort of local control people often talked about.

Mr. Alex Eadie: It will have more central control now.

Mr. Johnston: It should have more local control as opposed to central control.

Mr. Eadie: I wish the hon. Gentleman had read some of the debates which took

place in Committee, when we went over all these arguments. Main pillar after main pillar of the Wheatley Report has collapsed. This Bill is a dream for the central Government in controlling local government, because it makes it so much easier.

Mr. Johnston: There is a great deal of strength in what the hon. Gentleman says. The key to independence is financial control. Nevertheless, I wish to see a consistent structure based on certain principles. I hope that in future, if not immediately, the financial balance can be altered.

Mr. Eadie: indicated dissent.

Mr. Johnston: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He may be right and I may be over-optimistic.
The three functions about which worries have been expressed are education, social work and housing. My recollection is that no compelling evidence was presented to the Wheatley Commission that there was a maximum population in terms of the size of the education authority. Views and opinions were given, and the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said that the Scottish Education Department had expressed an opinion to that effect, but it was by no means the general opinion of educationists. Nor was any concrete evidence presented upon which a view could be based. That applied to many functions. People said that they thought x million or x thousand was the proper population, but they could not say why. It was a rough "guesstimate".
The Seebohm Committee laboured for three years considering social work in England and Wales. I accept the Seebohm contention that a proper service to the family cannot be provided unless responsibility for social work, housing and education lies with the same authority. The Wheatley argument for effective administrative devolution of social work has not been adequately met, and the concern expressed by hon. Members that a sufficient service would not be provided are unjustified.
The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) said that there are equally large areas in England where the same problems are tackled,


apparently effectively. Nevertheless it is natural, in the case of a transition from a number of smaller authorities with long-held and deep-seated loyalties, to find resistance to change. But if we are to reform local government in Scotland on the basis of certain principles—and three is no doubt that on the day that there was a vote on the division of Fife political considerations were more uppermost in some minds than principles—we should adhere to the concept of a west region because it is a more soundly and logically argued proposition than the alternative, attractive though it is.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: This amendment was explained by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), and I shall not go over it. It provides for a system of three tiers for this part of Scotland which would all be elected—this is one of the main differences between this and the proposal put forward in Committee—and the functions otherwise exercised by the two tiers elsewhere would be divided up between the three.
I recognise the amendment as another attempt to deal with a very difficult problem. I believe that this is the most difficult in the whole reorganisation of local government in Scotland. I also recognise the thought and efforts which lie behind these attempts, especially this, after the others had been considered.
The Government are keenly aware of the difficulty of finding the best solution for this part of Scotland, and we have therefore considered the amendments carefully to see whether there is another possibility which could be adopted, bearing in mind the special problems of education and social work to which references have been made.
Let us examine the metropolitan authority as it comes out in the amendment. First, the amendment recognises Strathclyde as a local government unit in its own right, despite its size. This is a step forward from the amendment which we considered in Committee. But, when it comes to assigning functions, this metropolitan authority is to be responsible only for strategic planning and certain impersonal services. If that means something more

than simply land use and includes control over the rest of the major resources throughout its area, the question arises whether this metropolitan authority can plan strategically when its own spending is so limited and the biggest user of resources, education, is outside its scope. This was a point continually given in evidence to the Wheatley Commission, and it came out in its report.
This problem would not occur in the other regions, where major functions, including strategic planning and education, are all under one authority. But in Strathclyde, under this amendment, to get strategic planning we should have to have some kind of hierarchy with either the education authority taking orders from the planning authority or both taking orders from the Secretary of State.
As regards the assignment of functions to regions, under the amendment the functions assigned to regional authorities elsewhere are shared in Strathclyde between the metropolitan authority and the middle-tier regions. I am not happy about what is left in functions for those four regions.
The Wheatley Commission rightly attached importance to getting functions grouped in a rational and constructive way under a single authority. But I see no guiding principle in the amendment except that of conferring on the regions everything which can be taken away from the top-tier.
In our view, some of the functions are not merely haphazard but seem to be wrongly assigned. Regional housing, countryside and tourism belong with strategic planning and cannot sensibly be assigned to an authority which exercises no planning functions in its own right.
The functions of the four regions do not appear to have been carefully thought out. The idea seems to be to fatten up the middle tier at the expense of the top tier. It may be argued that the allocation could be wrong, but that it can be adjusted. I do not think that is realistic. We have to look at the amendment as it stands.
We do not believe that the areas are satisfactory. It is not enough simply to say that they coincide with the proposed health board areas. The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) pointed that out, but it was his hon. Friend the


Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), who was Minister of State in the Labour Government, who pointed out in Committee that the reform of the National Health Service is not the same kind of operation. It is a single-tier reorganisation and the units are management units responsible to central Government, not to a local electorate.
The four regional areas into which Strathclyde would be split seem to lack internal cohesion. Each of them, except for Glasgow, is simply a combination of districts. We believe that the regions would be less well integrated than the larger unit of Strathclyde itself, which would be held together by Glasgow.
This is illustrated by considering where the headquarters of the new regions would be situated. For example, it might be Paisley, Hamilton or Ayr. But it is worth asking how accessible these places would be by public transport from the outlying parts of their regions—for example, Paisley from Balloch or Campbelltown—compared with the accessibility of Glasgow and its position as the centre of the Strathclyde region.

Mr. Millan: Has it been decided that Glasgow will be the centre of the Strathclyde region? As far as I am aware, it has not yet been decided.

Mr. Campbell: It has been mentioned in the debate. It was one of the principles, when the Wheatley Commission put forward its proposal, that the Strathclyde region should be based on this large city on the estauary of the Clyde.
The personal services of education and social work over such a large area and population raise the main cause for concern. The duty of working out the best pattern will be laid upon the elected Strathclyde authority, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, as provided in Committee.
There are difficulties in a three-tier system, some of which have been pointed out in the debate. In choices relating to local government structure the important issue always is: where does the overall balance of advantage and disadvantage lie? I have described what we see as the major disadvantages in the scheme put forward in the amendment: the deficiencies of the four regions as local government units; the difficulty of assigning a meaningful range of functions to

the middle tier of authorities; and the unsatisfactory relationship that would exist between an elected metropolitan authority responsible for strategic planning and elected regional authorities responsible for education.

Mr. Dempsey: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Campbell: Perhaps I might finish this part of my speech.
Few people who have anything to do with local government believe that a three-tier system would work well. It is not just a matter of having three different sets of councillors and three separate elections. I accept that it is not just that extra set of elections, but there is the difficulty that was brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) of dividing functions among three tiers and the likelihood of friction between them. For example, in housing, in which all three levels of authority would be concerned, there would be planning questions and the raising of a separate rate from the ratepayers. The councils at each level would be separately elected and would each have minds of their own. Suppose that the metropolitan authority agreed with the district authority about the need for an expansion of population in a particular part of Strathclyde: the district authority was prepared to do its part with local housing, but there was a need for some special assistance with housing at regional expense. But suppose that the middle authority, the regional authority, was, not prepared to provide that expenditure and said—this is a good example, and I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to listen to it—that its educational commitments were such that it could not provide extra schools to match the proposed population growth. One would, for practical purposes, have what amounted to a veto on the metropolitan authority's strategic plan. That is the kind of trouble into which a three-tier system of this kind would run.

Mr. Dempsey: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman appreciates the real situation. He said that one deficiency is that these authorities are collections of districts. Has he overlooked the fact that Lanarkshire is a water area, a police area, a fire area and one education area? It is an integrated administrative local


service area in all those respects. Does he not accept as a fact that it would be suitable to add the additional services mentioned by my hon. Friend in order to complete the integration of the Lanarkshire region?

Mr. Campbell: The hon. Gentleman made this point about Lanarkshire but I stick to what I said earlier, that these four regions appear to be districts that have been put together. As a result of the kind of friction that could arise from dividing the functions as proposed between three authorities we would be driven to a hierarchy that we all wish to avoid. One of the advantages of the two-tier system put forward by Wheatley and adopted in general by both sides of the House for the rest of Scotland is that there can be two tiers of authorities that are separate and independent without one being subordinate to the other. Difficuties arise once we get to the three tiers.
We understand the fears about the Strathclyde authority as proposed in the Bill. It is a large authority in relation to Scotland as a whole, but we do not believe that the amendment deals with this problem. It retains one tier covering the whole area proposed for Strathclyde. The area problem is not reduced.
I should like to deal with one point raised by the hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) and also by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith), and that is the question of strategic planning and the fact that the Secretary of State has power to call in planning applications. Hunterston is often cited, but I should point out that the situation there is unique. One cannot take Hunterston as an example, because so often during debates on other subjects hon. Members have agreed that the situation at Hunterston is unique and it ought not to be taken as a typical example of something that could happen in West Central Scotland.
We believe that major industrial planning decisions on the Clyde estuary and elsewhere in Strathclyde could mostly be

left to the new regional authority, but under the planning Acts the Secretary of State is in the position of being able to call in in certain circumstances and to be the final court of appeal where there are objections and a public inquiry.

The Bill's proposals reflect the pattern of communities in the west of Scotland and allow both for the proper democratic control of functions and for the effective provision of services for all the inhabitants of the area. They have been frequently and carefully examined against the alternatives, of which the one embodied in the amendment is the latest in a long line that have had to be discarded because they are second best to the one that was put forward by Wheatley and that the Government have adopted.

I should advise the House not to accept this further proposal for a structure in the area of Strathclyde in preference to the structure in the Bill. I agree that there is no perfect solution for this important part of Scotland—I wish there were—but I commend the solution in the Bill as the best of those that have been considered.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Ross: We have had a high level debate until the last speech. I can remember the verdict given by a very puritanical old Scot on the sermon of a minister: "In the first place it was read, in the second place it was not very well read, and in the third place it was not worth reading." The Bill is not Wheatley, either in the pattern or in the functions. There are complications in the Bill but what we have is very imperfect from the point of view of local government. We are sacrificing people and their contact with their representatives for something which is unthinkable and would have been ruled out a long time ago. What we have is a blueprint for bureaucracy if not for disaster.

Question put, That the amendment be made:

The House divided: Ayes 97, Noes 137.

Division No. 161.]
AYES
[11.32 p.m.


Armstrong, Ernest
Brown, Robert C.(N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)
Concannon, J. D.


Ashton, Joe
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Crawshaw, Richard


Atkinson, Norman
Buchan, Norman
Dalyell, Tam


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Davidson, Arthur


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)
Deakins, Eric




Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Perry, Ernest G.


Dempsey, James
Judd, Frank
Price, William (Rugby)


Doig, Peter
Kaufman, Gerald
Radice, Giles


Dormand, J. D.
Kerr, Russell
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Lamborn, Harry
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lamond, James
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Eadie, Alex
Latham, Arthur
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Ellis, Tom
Lestor, Miss Joan
Sillars, James


Evans, Fred
Lomas, Kenneth
Skinner, Dennis


Swing, Harry
McCartney, Hugh
Spearing, Nigel


Fisher, Mrs. Doris(B'ham, Ladywood)
McElhone, Frank
Stallard, A. W.


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
Machin, George
Steel, David


Ford, Ben
Mackenzie, Gregor
Stott, Roger (Westhoughton)


Gilbert, Dr. John
Maclennan, Robert
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Golding, John
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Tinn, James


Gourlay, Harry
McNamara, J. Kevin
Tope, Graham


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Marquand, David
Torney, Tom


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Meacher, Michael
Varley, Eric G.


Harper, Joseph
Millan, Bruce
Watkins, David


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Miller, Dr. M. S.
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Horam, John
Milne, Edward
Whitehead, Phillip


Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Oakes, Gordon
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
O'Malley, Brian



Hunter, Adam
Orme, Stanley
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Oswald, Thomas
Mr. David Lambie and Mr, John Smith.


Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Palmer, Arthur



John, Brynmor
Pavitt, Laurie





NOES


Allason, James (Kernel Hempstead)
Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Onslow, Cranley


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Atkins, Humphrey
Haselhurst, Alan
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)


Awdry, Daniel
Hawkins, Paul
Percival, Ian


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Hordern, Peter
Pink, R. Bonner


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hornby, Richard
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Benyon, W.
Hornsby-Smith. Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Raison, Timothy


Biffen, John
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Biggs-Davison, John
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Body, Richard
Iremonger, T. L.
Rost, Peter


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
James, David
Russell, Sir Ronald


Bowden, Andrew
Jenkin, Rt. Hn. Patrick (Woodford)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Braine, Sir Bernard
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Brewis, John
Jopling, Michael
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Shersby, Michael


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Simeons, Charles


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Kershaw, Anthony
Soref, Harold


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Speed, Keith


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Spence, John


Buck, Antony
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Sproat, Iain


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Knox, David
Stanbrook, Ivor


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Lamont, Norman
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Chapman, Sydney
Lawson, George
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sutcliffe, John


Churchill, W. S.
MacArthur, Ian
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
McCrindle, R. A.
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Clegg, Walter
McLaren, Martin
Tebbit, Norman


Cockeram, Eric
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Cooke, Robert
Maddan, Martin
Tugendhat, Christopher


Cooper, A. E.
Madel, David
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Cormack, Patrick
Mather, Carol
Waddington, David


Crouch, David
Mawby, Ray
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Dean, Paul
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Wiggin, Jerry


Emery, Peter
Miscampbell, Norman
Wilkinson, John


Eyre, Reginald
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Moate, Roger
Worsley, Marcus


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Money, Ernie
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Fortescue, Tim
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Younger, Hn. George


Fowler, Norman
Monro, Hector



Gower, Raymond
Montgomery, Fergus



Gray, Hamish
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)



Green, Alan
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Neave, Airey
Mr. Marcus Fox and Mr. John Stradling Thomas.


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael



Hannam, John (Exeter)
Normanton, Tom

Question accordingly negatived.

Schedule 1

NEW LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS

Mr. Mackintosh: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 143, leave out lines 9 and 10 and insert 'The County of Argyll'.

Mr. Speaker: With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 12, in page 144, leave out lines 7 and 8.

Mr. Mackintosh: The amendment arises over the question of the best location of the greater part of the county of Argyll, and the question whether it should be included in the Highland region or the west region.
There was dispute on this matter on the Wheatley Commission in the sense that the majority recommended that this area should be included in the Highland region but there was a note of dissent by the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) and the hon. Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson), who argued that it would be better put where the Government have now proposed, that is, in the west region.
It is worth looking quickly at the arguments adduced by the note of dissent. The chief argument was the size of the Highland region. It was alleged to be too large geographically and, therefore, that the larger part of the county should be put in the west region. My only counter to that point is that having taken it out of an admittedly large geographical area, it was put into a region which was the biggest in population and is geographically huge. The region now numbers 2½ million people, which is half of the population of Scotland.
The second argument has more cogency. That argument was that it is difficult to get transport from parts of Argyll to the proposed capital of the Highland region, that is, to Inverness, and that the natural transport routes are from Argyll to Glasgow.
Oddly enough, I may be contradicting my earlier arguments in our last debate—

Mr. John Smith: That is nothing unusual.

Mr. Mackintosh: —because basically this ties up. Basically, the point being made by the note of dissent is the city region argument. Some have said that no one has explained that argument. I thought that it was fairly clearly stated and well known. The arguments for including Argyll in the west region are basically the city region arguments. The natural transport routes from this area run to Glasgow, the nearest major industrial, commercial and cultural centre.
Another argument is that for higher education the children from the senior secondary schools tend to look to Glasgow as their major higher education and university centre.
Then there is the argument that the nearer parts of Argyll, particularly those on the Clyde estuary, are party commuter suburbs for the industrial area, certainly for professional work in the Clyde valley.
These arguments, together with the fact that the major institutions, for Instance, for social care, schools for the hard of hearing and special facilities for training handicapped children from that area tend to be located in the Glasgow area, are all traditional, well-known city region arguments. Although Argyll is remote and widely spread, in this sense it focuses in on Glasgow and the west. This is why the Government took the major decision and accorded with the note of dissent and put it not in the Highlands region but in the west region.
The counter-arguments appear to be marginally stronger and ought to be put in the House. The first argument—curiously this is the argument which chiefly moves my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. John Smith) in his attack on the whole concept of the city region based on Glasgow—is that my hon. Friend is frightened that this area will be so large, impersonal and deadening in practice that it will not understand the interests of areas such as that which he represents in North Lanarkshire. My hon. Friend finds that the existing administration of education, for instance, is too remote and impersonal, and he thinks that it will be worse if it is transferred to Glasgow.
If that is true of an area so similar in social characteristics to Glasgow as


North Lanarkshire, how much more true would it be of areas so different in social characteristics as Kintyre, the Islands of Jura, Islay, and even the far side of the Clyde estuary, where the social conditions are markedly different although there are the many connections that I have described with the Glasgow region? If my hon. Friend's point is that this will be deadening for remote parts of Lanarkshire, it is much more true in Argyllshire, where the social composition is so different.
Again, because a large part of Argyll is island in character, it has for traditional and planning purposes been included in the past with the seven crofting counties. They have tended to be dealt with as a unit for planning or remedial purposes, attempting to check de-population and to bring in light industry, and attempting to stimulate tourism, forestry and development.
11.45 p.m.
For all these purposes, the seven crofting counties including Argyll have been treated as a unit. They were put together for such purposes as the Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel, the Highland Transport Board, and, by the last Labour Government, for the Highlands and Islands Development Board services. For all these Argyll was treated as part of the Highlands.
Whether the city region argument linking Argyll with Glasgow is stronger or weaker than the common planning problems and common social problems, the affinity of outlook, that link it with the Highlands area is the question. I believe that what separates this region, particularly it swestern area, from the Glasgow conurbation with its own distinctive problems is the question of social outlook.
The major problems in Scotland are Clyde Valley problems. They are tremendously difficult and complex. The question is whether Argyll's major problems link it more naturally with that area or with the other problems which we have traditionally regarded as typical of the Highland counties.
There are one or two more special points. First, the majority of witnesses on this issue recommended that Argyll went in with the Highlands region. One exception was the county of Argyll which split in one case in favour of going into

the Highland region and then when it reconsidered the matter came out in favour of the western region. Argyll's going into the Highlands was supported by the Highlands and Islands Development Board which has practical experience of attempting to stimulate development in the area.
An important small point is the democratic point. This point was made in the earlier debate. The Highlands and Islands Development Board is exercising a number of powers. It has been said that these powers will not be granted to the new authorities by the central Government. They were granted by the last Labour Government to the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It has some jurisdiction which we normally associate with central Government.
If Argyll went in with the other crofting countries, the Highlands and Islands Developments Board could become the planning authority for that region and it would then be under the strict local democratic control which all of us in the House want. It could simply be absorbed by the Highlands region because, as was said in Committee, the board's powers could be extended by order to the new areas in Moray and Nairn and these powers already cover Argyll. We could therefore see the disappearance of the board as an ad hoc authority, with its full planning and expenditure powers being transferred as a planning agency to the Highlands Regional Authority.
I know that exceptions have tended to break into this possibility of placing the Development Board under the Highland authority. These are particular mistaken with the removal of the Islands from their proper place as part of the strategic planning area of the Highlands. It was a pity to remove the Orkneys, Shetlands and Outer Isles in that respect, but I would accept the separation of these islands in other respects.
There have been so many departures from the basic Wheatley concept that it is probably a mistake to press this strongly, but the basic link of the outlook of the landward area of Argyll in its attitude and its tradition seems to me to be more in common with the other areas in the Highlands than with an area dominated by the industrial development problems which there are in the Glasgow industrial


conurbation and which will undoubtedly absorb the energies of the western region of Glasgow.
It is in the greater interests of Argyll that my preference in the one case for the city region argument should be subordinated to the major point about the connection in planning problems, depopulation problems, highland development problems, in outlook, and attitude with the Highlands. The balance may be a fine one, but I think it is worth making these points.
I think that Wheatley was right on this. It is a matter of balance. I think that the balance comes down just on the other side from the Government.

Mr. John Smith: I shall be brief in my remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) was wrong in saying that his amendment is the Wheatley solution. It is not. Wheatley did not say that the whole county of Argyll should be put in the Highland region, but that is a minor point. My hon. Friend put the case persuasively for Argyll being in the Strathclyde region. The major transport and communication links are with the region, he said.

Mr. Mackintosh: The city region argument.

Mr. Smith: I do not think that it is the city region argument. My hon. Friend uses that expression as a shorthand for compressing a number of things into one phrase. Just because there are said to be better communications between parts of Argyll and Glasgow, we cannot necessarily adopt what he calls the city region argument. He said that this was a marginal argument. I do not believe that it is all that marginal.
His reason for favouring putting it in the Highland region was the attitude and outlook of most people in Argyll. If he was right about what he said about the attitude of the people, he conflicts with my opinion. I speak as someone who spent most of his young life in the heart of Argyll. I think that I have some knowledge of what the people there think and believe and I do not think that his view is shared by the people there. I do not think that the people in Campbeltown or Dunoon associate themselves closely

with Inverness. I do not think that most of Argyll can be regarded as a crofting county although it may have to be so defined for the purposes of some crofting legislation. The majority of the people, certainly in mid-Argyll and Kintyre and even parts north of that, wish to be in Strathclyde and I hope therefore that the amendment will not be accepted.

Mr. Russell Johnston: For my part I could read out the note of reservation in the Wheatley Report, but I suspect that would not be acceptable. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) started off by founding part of his arguments on the experience of the hon. Member for Lanarkshire North (Mr. John Smith) so that the subsequent remarks by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North seemed somewhat churlish.
Nevertheless, it was not a striking argument since it was based on the question of remoteness and, as he said, the basic reason for the note of reservation was the problem of remoteness within the Highland region. I accept that this is an argument of balance. It is not a conclusive argument. On balance the degree of remoteness for people in Argyll vis-à-vis Inverness would be greater than vis-à-vis Glasgow.
The second point is the social composition question. That was probably answered quite adequately by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North from his own personal experience and it was also underlined by the evidence in the note of dissent of all the various and varied organisations which operate from Argyll to Glasgow.
However in referring to the Highlands and Islands Development Board the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian did not refer to the arguments put in the note of reservation. It is worth whole putting on the record conversely that it was not the view of Mr. McGuinness, who was at that time in charge of regional planning at the Scottish Office, that, because the Highlands and Islands was designed for economic planning considerations, it was necessarily a suitable area for local government.
Likewise the same distinction was made by Professor Grieve who was then Chairman of the Highlands and Islands


Development Board. He said on page 297 of the Wheatley Report
I keep on saying that what we"—
that is the board—
say has limited relevance in some ways to this business of local government.
In fact, the amount of economic work the board was doing was not, nor should it necessarily be, a determinant in laying down local government boundaries.
The social point raised by the hon. Member for Larnarkshire, North is underlined by the statistics, such as those about crofting. The crofting population was estimated at only 4·7 per cent. of the total population of Argyll in 1966, compared with 27·9 per cent. in Ross-shire and 42·3 per cent. in Sutherland—a very big distinction. I imagine that in all cases the figures are now down.
Finally, the total area of the Highland region, according to the original Wheatley proposition, was 14,100 square miles, of which Argyll was 3,100. Therefore, even if we remove Argyll we are left with a Highland Region of considerable size. I agree that it would perhaps exacerbate the already large problem of the West region, but it does not exacerbate it so much more than it would if it were transferred back to the Highland region.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: Some of the pros and cons have been expressed by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh). It is a question of how much weight one attaches to them.
There was criticism of the majority recommendation of the Wheatley Corn-mission that the Highland Region proposed was far too large geographically, and that it could be made smaller by making the three island groups separate units and making a change in regard to Argyll.
Secondly, there is the question whether Argyll looks to Glasgow or to Inverness. On the criteria that we have used elsewhere, it seemed clear to us that most of Argyll looks to Glasgow as its regional centre rather than to Inverness.
I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about how the Highlands and Islands Development Board might fit into the future pattern in the Highlands. The

Government have not sought to bring the board into the new structure of local Government in a planning capacity or any other capacity. What we have done is to make it clear that the existing county of Argyll will remain within the board's area and that that area is to be considered later with a view to seeing whether the whole of the Highland region should be within it.
I wish to make that clear, because every time the question of part of Argyll going to the Strathclyde region is raised there is some anxiety about whether it would leave the area covered by the board. I take this opportunity of repeating that it would not.
The Government think that the Bill as it stands is the best answer. The hon. Gentleman said that it was a marginal question, and therefore I ask the House to leave the Bill as it is.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 143, line 30, column 1, leave out 'Forth' and insert 'Lothian'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With this amendment we may discuss Amendment No. 22, in page 147, line 20, column 1, leave out 'Forth' and insert 'Lothian', and Government Amendments No. 141 and No. 143.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: Now that none of Fife is in the Forth region, the name "Forth" is obviously a misnomer. The purpose of the amendment is to change the name to "Lothian", an honoured and traditional name which is very acceptable to all the people in Edinburgh and in that area.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I am glad to be able to accept the amendment for the reasons which my hon. Friend gave and because of the changes which took place in Committee.

Amendment agreed to.

12 Midnight

Mr. Mackintosh: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 143, line 35, at end insert—
'The parish of Cockburnspath'

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 9, in page 143, line


36, at end insert 'except the Cockburnspath'.

Mr. Mackintosh: I can deal with this amendment almost as briefly as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) dealt with Amendment No. 6. This is a probing amendment. The parish concerned is on the northern slopes of the Lammermoors. By tradition it has been associated with Dunbar, being linked in particular in church matters through the presbytery. The presbytery considered that the parish should be put into the Forth Region or, as it is now to be called, the Lothian Region. There were two meetings in the parish on the subject. The first resulted in a marginal decision to stay in the Borders and the second was a marginal decision to be transferred to the Lothian Region.
The salient factor which worries people in the parish is that an area health board has been established for the same area and covering the same area as the Borders Region. Will it now be the case that, if the parish is in the Borders Region, and therefore in the Borders health board area, when patients are committed by GPs to hospitals for that area, if the case is a fairly elementary or straightforward one, it should go to the Peel hospital which is the central hospital in the Borders health board area because that is the general hospital for the Borders area?
If that is the case, the transport situation is a difficulty. Those people without cars will not be able to visit relatives in Peel Hospital and return within a day. The normal visiting hours will not fit into the very inadequate bus connections. The question is whether for health purposes patients can be treated as if they were still part of the present South East of Scotland area. The GPs for Cockburnspath will be based in Dunbar. The transport goes north and south and not east to west. Will GPs be able to refer patients to the Edinburgh or Berwick-upon-Tweed hospitals as they have done in the past? This problem is a consqeuence of creating a new Borders Region and area health board. I should be grateful for clarification.

Mr. Younger: I appreciate the importance of this issue to those in the area. We received strong representations from the presbytery. We examined the evi-

dente again carefully in the light of those representations. Our examination suggested that for the purpose of services and facilities in terms of distance and communications there may be a slightly stronger orientation towards Dunbar than towards Eyemouth and Duns. For instance, Dunbar is eight miles from the village of Cockburnspath with 50 direct bus trips each way a week. Eyemouth and Duns are respectively 14 and 13 miles distant with 38 bus trips a week between them.
However, the evidence is by no means decisive and the Government recently sought the opinion of local authorities in the area. That is something which we try to do in this sort of case. That is an important matter. Broadly the authorities and the joint committees in the Borders opposed any change, while those in the Lothian Region, as it was named a few moments ago, supported the possibility of a transfer, with the exception of Dunbar Town and District Councils, the nearest authorities across the border, which suggested that the wishes of the residents of the parish should be paramount. The authorities representing the parish wish to retain the present position.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that there was a public meeting in April. He said that there were two meetings. I am not sure which was the second meeting. The one which I heard about took place in April and was attended by about 20 per cent. of the population of the parish. There was a narrow majority of 47 to 41 in favour of the Bill as it stands.
The Government do not feel that there is sufficient justification for the amendment in the light of that evidence but would propose to refer the matter to the Boundary Commission for early consideration of the case in the fullest possible detail. It will be able to do so with more time and facilities at its disposal than we have had. I hope that it will be realised that this is not the end of the story. We think that we must go ahead at present on the narrowly balanced argument as it stands but the Boundary Commission will be asked to look into the matter.
The question about the hospitals must be a matter for the health board itself, but I think I can give the hon. Gentleman


the assurance he seeks by pointing out what I am sure he knows but which should be made clear—that there are other cases of what are known sometimes as outwith area arrangements for places on the periphery of hospital catchment areas. In every case of which I know, the most sensible arrangements from the point of view of the patients are gone into. I hope that will be some consolation to those in the area who may feel worried about this aspect. I therefore recommend the House not to accept the amendment, on my assurance that this matter goes to the Boundary Commission.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 143, line 47, leave out 'divisions of Kilsyth East, Kilsyth West' and insert:
'division of Kilsyth West; the polling district of Kilsyth East (Banton)'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we shall take the following amendments standing in the name of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Baxter):
No. 11, in page 143, line 47, leave out 'divisions of Kilsyth East' and insert 'division of'.
No. 15, in page 144, line 11, leave out 'divisions of Kilsyth East' and insert 'division of'.
No. 26, in page 148. line 15, leave out 'divisions of Kilsyth East' and insert 'division of'.
No. 38, in page 149, line 40, leave out 'divisions of Kilsyth East' and insert 'division of'.
Government Amendments Nos. 14, 25 and 37.

Mr. Younger: Amendments Nos. 10, 14, 25 and 37 resolve the previous anomaly of the division of the village of Banknock by the boundary between the Central and Strathclyde regions by including the whole village within the central region. The amendments are in response to an undertaking which I gave in Committee to examine whether a more satisfactory boundary might be drawn to avoid splitting Banknock, and having the support of Stirling County Council.
The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr.

Baxter) go rather further in seeking to transfer the whole of Kilsyth East electoral division to the Central region. The electoral division contains two polling districts, centred on the villages of Ban-knock and Banton. The local authorities in the area have indicated that the predominant links of the electoral division of Kilsyth East, except for the area around Banknock, are westwards with the Strathkelvin district. Banton, is in fact only about two miles from Kilsyth, which it is agreed should remain within the Strathkelvin district. The Government amendments deal with the outstanding anomaly, and I ask the House to accept them and to reject those of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Robert Hughes: I beg to move Amendment No. 280, in page 144, line 2, column 1, leave out 'Strathclyde' and insert 'West'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we are to take Amendment No. 281, standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. William Ross), in page 148, line 42, column 1, leave out 'Strathclyde' and insert 'West'.

Mr. Hughes: This is simply a question of naming. I do not know whether the name "Strathclyde" is universally accepted. Wheatley thought of broadly the same area as being described as the "West region". I do not think that it is a matter of very great importance, although I am subject to correction by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) when he returns. I should be interested to know whether the Government are prepared to accept the changes suggested.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: We have tried where possible to get the majority opinion of those in the areas. We have not tried to impose names. I can respond to the hon. Gentleman's request for information. The name "Strathclyde" was suggested by 17 authorities in the area and the name "West" by four. One authority recommended "West of Scotland" and the rest did not comment. That is why "Strathclyde" seemed to be the most popular name. I recognise that the area of this region does not coincide precisely with the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde, but we


think that a pedantic reason for throwing it out.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. John Brewis: I beg to move Amendment No. 13, in page 144, line 9 at end insert:
'(except the burgh of Girvan; the district of Girvan)'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With this amendment we will take the following amendments:
No. 16, in page 144, line 15, column 2, at end insert:
'In the county of Ayr—the burgh of Girvan; the district of Girvan'.
No. 40, in page 150, line 50, column 3, leave out:
'the burgh of Girvan; the district of Girvan'.
No. 41, in page 151, line 3, column 3, at end insert:
'In the county of Ayr—the burgh of Girvan; the district of Girvan'.

Mr. Brewis: At this late hour I wish I could speak as briefly as did the hon. Members who moved the last few amendments. I have cut down what I wanted to say, but as no Member from the South-West of Scotland was on the Committee on the Bill I would be grateful to be allowed to spend a few minutes on this matter.
Nobody denies—least of all do I—that Ayrshire is a splendid county or that it enjoys the loyalty of its inhabitants including those in the Girvan district. If there had been a choice for them between an Ayrshire region and joining the South-West Region I think the people of Girvan would have preferred to be in the Ayrshire region. My hon. Friend the Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) put the average view very well when in Committee he said he did not like the idea of splitting off any part of a county that historically belongs to it, but this is not the choice. There is not to be an Ayrshire region. The choice for the Girvan district is between being in the huge Strathclyde Region dominated by Glasgow or in the South-West Region. Everybody knows that the Strathclyde Region is far too big. Wheatley said so. The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said the same thing this evening; Mr. Paterson, Convener of Ayr County Council, has also said it and predicted chaos.
If Girvan goes into the South-West it will have three representatives on the regional council. If it goes into Strathclyde Region it will get about one-third of a representative shared with Maybole and about 16 other villages. In other words, it will get nine times the representation if it goes into the South-West, and it is at regional level that the important decisions are to be made under the new system of local government. One might say that, in the South-West, Girvan would be a fair sized salmon whereas in the Strathclyde Region it would merely be a minnow swimming up the Clyde.
The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) put forward various arguments about Girvan looking north, but those arguments could be made to say that Stranraer should belong to the Strathclyde Region. If one lives in Stranraer one goes to Ayr for football matches and the races, and one goes shopping in Glasgow, but that does not mean for a moment that one necessarily has community with Glasgow.
I think my right hon. Friend has been very much influenced by a petition which was taken round the Girvan district by, I believe, two charming young ladies. We here all know how easy it is to sign a petition if one has no pecunicary interest or obligation involved. I think we know about the value of signatures on a petition.
There were two mis-statements about that petition. The first was that if the district of Girvan went into the South-West the Girvan old folk would end their days in the Waverley House, Stranraer. It is an unsuitable building at present. What was not said was that this building is to be replaced this year and there will be a brand-new building ready, probably by the time the Bill becomes law. It was then said that if someone fell ill he would not go to Ayrshire hospitals but would be trundled over country roads to far-distant Dumfries Hospital.
So strong were these representations and so powerful were their effects that Girvan Town Council put out a special public announcement which said:
In order to allay the fears and worries of the elderly, infirm and parents in the Burgh of Girvan regarding future medical treatment the Town Council have decided to publish the following excerpts from letters received from


the secretaries of the Boards of Management of Southern Ayrshire and Ailsa Hospitals and the Dumfries, Galloway and Crichton Royal Hospitals.
I will not read all the statement. The relevant point was that there would be no change in the present treatment of patients at Ayr. There was to be no question of sending patients from Girvan to hospitals in Dumfries. It has never been the policy in the National Health Service to recognise boundaries for patient care. The statement added:
What must be remembered is that administrative boundaries are not clinical boundaries.

12.15 p.m.

Mr. Sillars: Is that the statement which mentions my name?

Mr. Brewis: Yes, it is.
By then the harm had been done. The Secretary of State had been impressed by this petition and without consulting any of the convenors in the south-west or the Provost of Girvan he accepted the amendment in Committee.
The hon. Member for South Ayrshire put forward various arguments in Committee and no doubt will do so again. I must deal with them as shortly as possible. He started off with a prehistoric argument and I do not think I need pursue it too far. He said that the boundary between Carrick and Galloway was the Deil's Dyke. The hon. Gentleman then correctly spoke about Kyle, Carrick, Cunninghame and Galloway being the four ancient districts in the South-West. He said that Galloway was quite separate from the other three. I do not know how he worked that out.
Another boundary given in the traditional Galloway toast at a banquet is to
all the wives and wains from the brig end of Dumfries to the braes of Glenapp
which is well into Ayrshire. I would like to mention the old rhyme which goes:
Twixt Wigton and the toun of Ayr
Portpatrick and the Cruives of Cree
No man need think to bide there
Unless he court with Kennedie.
So for centuries, up to the late 1600s Carrick and Galloway were together.
Geographically this is perhaps a wide description but not far off the original Merrick district proposed in the Bill and

now changed. If anything, it shows that the kinship goes even further than Girvan. For more years than Ayr has been the administrative capital this area was probably ruled as often from Castle Kennedy, Stranraer, as from Cassillis or Blairquhan.
There is no clear boundary between Carrick and Galloway. The present county boundary is probably largely the marches of the estate in Wigtownshire which was purchased by the Stair family 200 to 300 years ago.
Coming to more modern times, the hon. Member for South Ayrshire made several mis-statements in his speech in Committee. Taking fishing first, he said that the main landing place for the fishing fleet of Girvan was Ayr. Girvan is a fishing port in its own right with boat agents, chandlers and repairers established there. Landing are frequently made at Portpatrick in Wigtownshire, and McMillan of Stranraer is probably the biggest buyer of fish in that part of Stranraer.
The land and system of farming in Wigtownshire and Carrick are quite indistinguishable, being largely hill farming, with dairying on the better land. The main markets for black-faced sheep are at Barrhill in Ayrshire and Newton Stewart in Wigtownshire, and for Ayrshire cattle Castle Douglas in the Stewartry, Newton Stewart and Ayr. There are no differences. There are as many Galloway farmers in Ayr as there are Ayrshire farmers in Newton Stewart or Castle Douglas.
There is a small mining community in Dailly but no coal mining in Galloway. The mining communities in Ayr and Dumfries are connected through the National Union of Mineworkers branch, and the links of the Dailly miners are just as much with Kirkconnell and Sanquhar as with Lanarkshire.

Mr. Sillars: Before leaving this morning I told the District Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers that comments of the nature of those made by the hon. Gentleman would probably be made in the House today. He said that the connection between the Dailly men and the Dumfries men was confined to history a long time ago and was a welfare connection. Dailly is part of the Ayrshire


District NUM which is an integral part of the Scottish area NUM.

Mr. Brewis: The hon. Gentleman probably knows more about this than I do, but I think he will agree that the Dailly men belong to the Ayrshire and Dumfries branch.

Mr. Sillars: No.

Mr. Brewis: I will accept that.
The hon. Gentleman said that Girvan continued to be serviced with water from an Ayrshire source. That is not strictly accurate. The reservoirs at Penwhapple, Glendrishaig and Pinmacher were all created by Girvan Town Council and until the water re-organisation much of the landward area of Ayrshire was serviced from Girvan.
The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) suggested that the work pattern was that workers came from Girvan on the 8.45 a.m. train and worked in Ayr, coming north. About 20 regular travellers get off that train, only five of whom come from Girvan. That is a very small sample from which to establish a work pattern.

Mr. Ross: How many go to Prestwick, Troon and Glasgow? The train goes right on to Glasgow—the area with which the people object to being connected.

Mr. Brewis: I understand that 20 people got off the train at Ayr and that only five people from Girvan work in Ayr.

Mr. Ross: I got on the 8.15 a.m. train this morning at Ayr and many people got off the train, which came from Girvan. Many people who were on the train when it arrived at Ayr stayed on and went to various other destinations in the Strathclyde area.

Mr. Brewis: I might tell the right hon. Gentleman that I was on that train, and than 17 people got on at Girvan.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to make the seemingly extraordinary statement that people thought that the Kilmarnock by-pass would enable people to get from Girvan to Glasgow in 15 minutes. However, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows that Girvan

is a very long way from Glasgow. The distance, I understand, is 55 miles.

Mr. Ross: The Girvan town council has accused me of deliberately attempting to mislead the Committee and that this was the only conclusion which could come from that report. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that? Does he agree that I deliberately misled the Committee in having been reported as having made that statement?

Mr. Brewis: I am a bit more gracious that the right hon. Gentleman on these occasions. I remember how many times he refused to give way to Lady Tweedsmuir when she spoke about "thrifty" council tenants and was reported as having said "shifty" tenants. The right hon. Gentleman would not accept her correction. However, I will accept his version—

Mr. Ross: It is not a matter of accepting my version. I was accused of a deliberate attempt to mislead the Committee—

Mr. Brewis: Possibly the right hon. Gentleman succeeded in misleading the Committee. Whether he intended to do so, I do not know. I should have thought that the only point in making that remark at all was to give the impression that Girvan was a great deal closer to Glasgow than it is.

Mr. Ross: But did I make that statement? The hon. Gentleman has a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT before him. Will he turn to page 2 and see what is says there?

Mr. Brewis: There is no page 2.

Mr. Ross: I mean page 2 of the cover. This is something about which everyone should know in any report from the House of Commons.

Mr. Brewis: I am afraid that I am quite unable to get the point. Page 2 of the cover reads:
The following Members attended the Committee ….".
In any event, I think that the right hon. Gentleman has been able to intervene enough. Perhaps I might be allowed to get on with my speech now.

Mr. Ross: No. Page 2 reads:
Members who wish to have copies …


Then,
No proofs can be supplied. Corrigenda slips will be published and attached to the brown paperback issues.
They are not, simply because of printing difficulties. But, as the hon. Gentleman knows, reporters make mistakes, and opportunities are given to Members to correct those mistakes.
Would not it have been fairer of the hon. Gentleman, he having known me since he first came to this House and I having been here for 27 years, if he had acknowledged that one cannot deliberately mislead a Committee which is sitting with maps before it in relation to distances. The hon. Gentleman says that I may not have deliberately misled the Committee but that I did in effect mislead it. I said that people thought that the opening of that by-pass would enable them to get from Girvan to Glasgow a quarter of an hour sooner. That one word "sooner" was omitted by the reporters. Everyone on the Committee knew that even with modern means of transport it was impossible to cover 55 miles in 15 minutes.

Mr. Brewis: Well, I do not think it is worth pursuing. The right hon. Gentleman made this extraordinary statement that people thought that the by-pass would enable people to get from Girvan to Glasgow in 15 minutes. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did not mean to mislead the Committee. But that is what he said, and he had the chance to correct it.

Mr. Ross: That is what I was reported as saying. If I had suggested that, does the hon. Gentleman think that the Under-Secretary would have accepted it? Does he think that the hon. Members for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) would have accepted it? Does he think that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hill-head (Mr. Galbraith) would have accepted it? After all, some of those hon. Members live in Ayr. The hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) should employ a little more of the graciousness that he claims to have.

12.30 a.m.

Mr. Brewis: I have been gracious enough. I shall now get on with my speech. I have already been on my feet a long time.
I turn now to some of the past actions by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock. When he was Secretary of State for Scotland he produced a White Paper on the Scottish Economy 1965–70 Within the framework of his national plan he promoted study areas, of which one was South-West Scotland, which included Galloway, Girvan and Cumnock. Why did he do this if, to use his own words, Galloway and Carrick were completely separate areas?
Thereafter, the right hon. Gentleman set up the South-West of Scotland Economic Planning Council covering the same area. That council asked the Scottish Office to carry out a special study. That was done and published as "The Strategy for South-West Scotland." Why was that done if these two areas were completely separate?
Again, but this time on the initiative of the Scottish Tourist Board and the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), who is not here, the South-West Tourist Association was set up. This, too, included Girvan as one of the most active members. We made an excellent tourist film, "The Quiet Country", in which the advice and expertise of members of Girvan Town Council was much appreciated. Girvan has never been a member of the Clyde Tourist Association. Indeed, in tourist terms it has been known as the gateway to Galloway.
Since the White Paper came out in February 1971, Girvan has been an active member of the Regional Joint Committee and the District Joint Advisory Board. Everything has gone extremely smoothly, and it was a considerable shock when the Secretary of State made his announcement in Committee. Every hon. Member will have received a letter signed by all the county conveners in the South-West and by the Provost of Girvan asking that this decision be reversed. I may add that, to my knowledge, all the other small local authorities in Dumfries and Galloway are also in favour of Girvan coming into the South-West. That is also the view of the professional local government officers represented by NALGO.
Against this overwhelming weight of argument there are undoubtedly people who want to go in with Strathclyde. I admit that at once. If the feeling were as strong as the Secretary of State thought


when he allowed the amendment, why were the Girvan Town Council and the Girvan District Council re-elected with more or less the same people who had been representing them before? This was very much a live political issue in the area. If so many people want to go into Strathclyde, why did they not elect more members to the councils who supported that argument?
We want Girvan in the South-West. It has much to contribute by way of expertise not only in tourism, but in attracting industry. Girvan wants to be in the South-West. Will my right hon. Friend now recognise that his first thoughts were right and change his mind? If so, we shall greatly respect him.

Mr. Sillars: I rise to answer the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) who has sought to interpret the situation in South Ayrshire on what he claims is a better basis than the hon. Member for South Ayrshire.
I will deal first with his last point about the recent elections. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the district and town council elections confirm a particular view about where Girvan should be in local government reform. However, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that Girvan District Council takes an entirely different view of the matter from the Girvan Town Council. I should think that, being an experienced politician, he would know full well that many factors are involved in elections, not least political ideology. Of the four candidates returned to the Girvan Town Council this year two, to my knowledge, were opposed to the official majority view of the Town Council that Girvan should be allocated to the South-West.
Therefore, I turn the question round. If people felt so strongly for the South-West, why did they not attempt to unseat Mrs. Armstrong who is in favour of inclusion in Strathclyde? The reason is that there are political considerations out-with those involved in the structure of local government which weigh more heavily that the local government argument does on the minds of those who promote candidates.
The hon. Gentleman has, by and large, used the brief submitted to him in terms of comments from Girvan Town Council. All the members of the Standing

Committee received this sheaf of comments shortly after the decision was taken about Girvan, and recently every Member of Parliament has been issued with the same sheaf of comments, and I want to answer those comments because in doing so I shall answer the hon. Gentleman.
The first point concerns the South-West Tourist Association. I think that it was last year when I was in Girvan that I picked up the official Girvan Holiday Accommodation Handbook. It is entitled "Girvan and South Ayrshire Holiday Accommodation Handbook" and it deals almost exclusively with Girvan and South Ayrshire. It lists to the north and south of Girvan such places as the Maidens, Barr, Barrhill, Kirkoswald, Dunure, Dalrymple, Maybole, Dailly, Colmonell, Ballantrae and New Cumnock, all of them in South Ayrshire, and all the districts mentioned are involved in the South-West Tourist Association.
New Cumnock is in the area of the South-West Tourist Association. Are Girvan Town Council and the hon. Gentleman arguing that we should allocate New Cumnock to the South-West of Scotland? It is a tenuous argument that is being put forward, and it does not stand examination. It is not a great pillar of principle on which I should base my argument if I were the town council or the hon. Gentleman.
Next, it is argued that Girvan Town Council is "democratically elected by a majority of electors in South Ayrshire". That does not stand examination either. I have had consultations with several people in Girvan, and not only on the basis of petitions presented to me. I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman earlier quote the advertisement that was an underwriting of my stated position and correcting any misinformation given about the National Health Service in the Girvan area. As I said on Second Reading, my post bag was fuller on this issue than it had been on any other since I became a Member of this House, and surpassed even that which I experienced on the Common Market debate.
The hon. Gentleman did not mention the petition presented by the Girvan District Council, which is a responsible civic body, or the petition from the village of Dailly expressing concern about being allocated to the South-West. My view


—and it is my view and I accept that it is open to contest—having taken all the soundings from the area concerned, is that the people who represent the majority on Girvan Town Council do not represent the majority of the people in the whole area affected.
The hon. Gentleman, like Girvan Town Council, put forward the argument about water. This is the weakest argument of all. They say that the source of Girvan's water has been Penwhapple, Glendrishaig and Pinmacher reservoirs which are all within the area of the Dumfries and Galloway region as defined in the Bill. That is true in literal terms, but perhaps I may refer the hon. Gentleman to the original Bill which was before the House on Second Reading. Clause 145 says that that part of Girvan concerned with water was a transferred function to Strathclyde. That was done by the Government on the basis of the report by the Scottish Water Advisory Committee, which said, about Girvan's water:
Thus, we recommend that South Kincardineshire be statutorily defined as part of the proposed East Region for water supply purposes and that the Girvan district be similarly defined as part of the West Region for water supply.
Although it would fall geographically within the South-West region as originally defined in the Bill, for all practical purposes—storage, pumping and supply—it would lie within Strathclyde and would be a function of the Strathclyde Authority. That is the third of their comments that fall by the wayside on examination.
The hon. Member's fairest point related to the harbour. I readily conceded when I met the provost and members of the action committee that it was remiss of me not to stress the significant contribution made by Girvan Harbour to the Clyde fishing. But a consultant's report submitted to Girvan Town Council underlines the fact that, while Girvan contests Ayr's prime position in inshore fishing on the Clyde, Ayr nevertheless has tended to be the main centre. The hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) is nodding vigorously at that. As I explained to the Provost, although it was remiss of me, he and the town council should not read that as acquiescence by me in the proposition that Ayr should be the prime centre for ever more.
Next, we are told that Castle Douglas and Newton Stewart have the largest

sheep sales in that part of the country. I am pleased to hear that, but it does not add to or detract from the argument that Girvan is an integral part of Ayrshire. They mention the Dailly miners as part of the Ayr and Dumfries division. I have already dealt with that.
They then go back to the point I mentioned previously, about Girvan representing the majority of electors in the whole of South Ayrshire. I put it to the hon. Member, as I put it to the action committee, representing the town council, that he has not thought through the implications of the Bill as originally presented.
I understand that as originally defined, the boundary did not take in the alginate industries. We should have had to draw the boundary further north to embrace the alginate industries in the Merrick district. If we had done that, given the importance of Girvan as a tourist area and the importance of Turnberry Hotel to Girvan as a tourist area, there would have been very serious arguments for taking Turnberry into the Girvan area. If one did that one would be almost bound to take in the Maidens, because there is a community of interest between Turnberry, Girvan and the Maidens, on the one hand, and the Maidens and Girvan, on the other. One had to think ahead, instead of just accepting the line on the map drawn by the Government. Not enough folk in Girvan Town Council thought enough about the people on the outskirts of that area. I have to do so, however.

Mr. Brewis: One would normally expect that line to be redrawn to take in the alginate industries. I do not see why the boundary should be north of the alginate industries site.

Mr. Sillars: I am saying that that is something for debate. The hon. Gentleman does not have the same problems, but I, as the Member for South Ayrshire, have to consider how far north the Merrick boundary should go to include a vital organisation in tourist as well as in industrial terms.
The hon. Member made much of my right hon. Friend's argument about the train going from Girvan to Ayr. I hope that he was only joking. The hon. Member and I have had enormous difficulty


in fighting to defend this line. It adds nothing to our defence for Girvan Town Council to be joined by the hon. Member in downgrading the importance of a line which we have always regarded as the lifeline of that area. The hon. Gentleman knows that, if that line goes an awful lot else between Ayr and Stranraer goes with it. I regard this attack as sheer madness both by the hon. Member and by Girvan Town Council.
12.45 a.m.
On the alleged mistake of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), it may interest the hon. Member for Galloway to know that I informed the provost and members of the action committee shortly after the Standing Committee of the error in reporting, but in spite of having had the error of reporting pointed out to them, they persisted in circulating the childish remark about my right hon. Friend to Members of Parliament.
I set out in Standing Committee the criteria upon which one should judge whether Girvan was an integral part of Ayrshire or could be allocated to the Galloway and Dumfries region. We dealt with education, the health service, transport, communications, travel-to-work patterns and industry. My argument basically is that decisions which are taken to the north of Girvan, immediately to the north or further north, will be the fundamentally important decisions determining that area's economic and social welfare whether it is in the South-West or not.
The decisions taken to the north of Girvan will be the crucially important decisions and, while I do not like the size of Strathclyde, Girvan should have a voice as of right where major policy-making decisions which impinge on Girvan are made, and they will be made to the north of Girvan area and not to the south. I ask the Government to stick to the decision of the Standing Committee, unanimous at that time, to keep Girvan as an integral part of Ayrshire.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: Banff and Girvan can hardly be said to be contiguous and it may be wondered why I support my hon.

Friend's amendment. This arises out of the success I had at Committee stage with my amendment to transfer responsibilities and powers from the regional authority to the district authority.
I had a letter shortly after that from Councillor Kidd who is convener of Girvan Town Council Harbour Committee. He wrote in congratulatory terms. Subsequently he came to Banff to look at a harbour administered by a local authority. I met him and he put to me some of the argument adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) for this amendment.
The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) made the claim—and I do not dispute it—that Girvan District Council covers a larger area than that of Girvan Town Council. It is fair to point out that when the decision to say "yea" or "nay" to the Wheatley proposals and the White Paper was put before the Town Council, it was in favour of both by a majority of six, by nine votes to three.
I do not wish to rehearse some of my hon. Friend's argument but I shall mention two points—first the administrative point that since the White Paper and the Bill were published, Girvan Town Council has gone a long way with the steering committee for Dumfries and Galloway region with regard to future integration. A lot of work has been done, but there has been no form of consultation or contact with Strathclyde region. If the amendment is not accepted, all the work which has been done will, in a sense, have to be undone and much more done.
My hon. Friend mentioned one very significant fact which the House should bear in mind. If the Girvan area goes into the Dumfries and Galloway region, it will have three regional councillors and six district councillors. If it goes into the Strathclyde region it will have only one regional councillor and two district councillors.
I conclude by mentioning what has already been mentioned, that is, that the port of Girvan now has a fleet of 22 fishing boats fishing out of its harbour. I know from experience in my constituency how important it is to the local community to have an active fishing fleet not only fishing out of the town but landing its catch there. It is, perhaps, premature


to say that we shall be returning to that matter a little later. To a large extent, the viability of a harbour must depend on an active fishing fleet. I mention that now to illustrate the fact that, in my opinion and as a result of submissions made to me, that is one more reason why Girvan as a viable economic unit, would do better in the Dumfries and Galloway region than in the Strathclyde region.

Mr. Ross: I am surprised that the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) should give the weight of his influence to the rather intemperate and childish remarks of a Girvan town councillor. I cannot understand how people can come to a denial of its history. The hon. Member spoke about Galloway embracing Carrick.
I must apologise to the House because I was not present to move an amendment in my name in relation to Strathclyde and the west. But if the hon. Member would care to return to the dawn of history, he will realise that Strathclyde stretched from Dumbarton, right along the Clyde, through Dumfries and right into Cumberland. That part which was then called Galloway was Kirkcudbright and Wigtown. As one moved up, certainly a part of South Ayrshire may well have been construed then as Galloway, but it was an entirely different kingdom—and we are talking in terms of kingdoms—that followed thereafter. One of the ludicrous things about Strathclyde was that the other part was actually in Dalriada. There is nothing in history to support this Strathclyde business, or to support the hon. Member in relation to that.
Administratively, thereafter Ayrshire was broken up. What is now Ayrshire was broken up into Kyle, Cunningham and Carrick. Girvan has always claimed to be in Carrick. During the Committee stage I was invited to Girvan for a Burns supper. What was the name of the club? It was the Carrick Burns Club, not the Galloway and Brewis Burns Club.—[Interruption.] It was not dry; far from it. As a result of that, I was persuaded to go to another club, which was even less dry, the Brigton Burns Club.
In terms of administration, Girvan has been in Ayrshire and has never objected to being in Ayrshire.
The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) had better get things right. He said that Girvan Town Council met on the subject of Wheatley and agreed with Wheatley. It agreed with Wheatley, but Wheatley put Girvan into the West Region. Thereafter, it was the White Paper and the Bill that took it out. That was the doing of the present Government, and not Wheatley. If the hon. Member wants to know the real reason why Girvan was taken out of the West Region, let me tell him that it was simply that everyone was appalled by the size of the West Region and started to look around for methods of making it smaller. Anything they did with Girvan was rendered nugatory by what was done to Argyll. It was nonsense so to distort history and administrative pattern.
The Wheatley Commission considered as one region the whole of the West plus the South-West. The hon. Gentleman's argument about what was done by the Economic Planning Commission is an argument for extending Strathclyde right down to include Stranraer. That argument falls on grounds of size and population. From that point of view we were right to maintain what had been a community and a community spirit in Ayrshire with part of Ayrshire being in Strathclyde.
The hon. Gentleman did not support me on Strathclyde. He thinks that Strathclyde is all right even with Girvan in it and he voted for it. He does not want it to be broken up. On what kind of principle is he prepared to stand?
The town council accuses me of a deliberate attempt to mislead the Committee. I let it be known in the Committee that there was an error. I went to the OFFICIAL REPORTERS, who took note of my correction. I sincerely hope that it will appear in the bound copy. The hon. Gentleman knows that there have been printing difficulties.
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman was not prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt even when I confronted him with it, stating that it was an error. HANSARD is full of errors. There is a wonderful one in a speech by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison); the hon. Gentleman spoke about Liberton School in Edinburgh but it appears in HANSARD as "Libertine School".
After I had made a speech in an agricultural debate, during which I mentioned


Auchincruive College, I received a note from the OFFICIAL REPORTERS asking me to confirm that I had said "Often Crude".
When the hon. Gentleman reads something that is obviously wrong, instead of jumping to the obvious conclusion and thinking, "The right hon. Gentleman did not say that", he thinks the worst. He could have asked anyone in the Committee. He has seen the maps we had in Committee when we discussed Girvan and Glasgow. The distance is 57 miles. It would be nonsense to suggest that one could travel that distance in 15 minutes. Should it not have been obvious to anyone who knew anything about the House of Commons and its Committees and how they work that a mistake had been made somewhere? That possibility is recognised by the invitation to Members inside every copy of HANSARD to make corrections.
I am not surprised that Girvan Town Council was straining at every gnat to prove its case. However, I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman should have lent whatever weight he has to the council. Then he wriggled when I asked him to do the honest and fair thing and recognise that a mistake had been made. He said that I had misled but not deliberately.
The hon. Gentleman can take it from me that I did not use the phrase. He can ask anyone who was in the Committee.
I am not worried about the childish attitude of Girvan Town Council or of some temporary town clerk. It is not my habit to resort to deliberate attempts to mislead. The Committee is composed of Scottish Members, four of whom come from Ayrshire. Yet another lives in South Ayrshire. They know the distance between Glasgow and Girvan. The maps for each region were before us.
1.0 a.m.
Now we come to the business of the trains. Will the hon. Member tell me the time of the train on which he travelled?

Mr. Brewis: It left Stranraer at 7.34 a.m.

Mr. Ross: Never mind when it left. What time did it arrive at Girvan?

Mr. Brewis: At about 8.30 a.m.

Mr. Ross: In his original statement the hon. Member obviously looked at an out-of-date timetable. I hope the information about the people who travelled on it was a bit better than about the timing of the train. Many of the people travelling on that train were going to the Ayr Technical College. I hope that the hon. Member counted them and I hope that he asked everyone on the train where they were going and when they were coming back. He has not answered any points about that.
How many people travelled from Girvan to Dumfries to get to work? What about Girvan to Stranraer? I do not know whether the hon. Member realises it but there are people sitting in Glasgow in the offices of the Scottish Region who are desperately anxious to close stations and now they have found an ally in Girvan Town Council. Trains do not mean anything to it. The hon. Member should appreciate the considerable difficulties that have been created for him. If he had fought as hard to save the railway line from Dumfries to Stranraer he might not have been faced with some of the travelling difficulties experienced over the last few years.
It is childish for the hon. Member to suggest that Girvan never has been in Ayrshire and never is likely to be. It is not true.

Mr. Brewis: The right hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber when I started my remarks. I said that if there were to be an Ayrshire region I agreed that Girvan would want to be in that region, but that is not the question.

Mr. Ross: That makes it all the more difficult to understand why the hon. Member voted against my previous amendment which was to create an Ayrshire region. I know that we have upset the hon. Member. He has to catch that flight to Brussels. It might be better if he stayed in Brussels. He has not yet come up with the suggestion that Girvan be annexed by Brussels. He has received the treatment tonight that he deserves for putting up such an argument.
I hope that the Government will stand by their decision. There is no doubt where Girvan lies from an administrative or geographical point of view. It belongs


within Ayrshire. I have quoted a statement in the 1968 White Paper on health reorganisation saying that it would be a good thing if the area health boards and the local government areas were coterminous. From that point of view our proposals provide a far better solution. I hope that the Government will stand by their decision.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: The amendment asks the Government to change back to their original preference. The Government have never doubted the close links which exist between Girvan and Ayr. Originally we felt that Girvan's connections with Dumfries and Galloway and that region would justify transferring it. Therefore when we examined the Wheatley Commission proposals we thought that the fact that Girvan is included with the Dumfries and Galloway region in the area covered by the South-West Tourist Association and the economic planning consultative group indicated that it could be so transferred. It would also have had the advantage of adding to the resources of Galloway and Dumfries region and reducing to some extent the size of the Strathclyde region, about which a lot has been said.
The issue is not clear-cut. My hon. Friend has given other reasons why the Girvan area might be included with the South-West region. The Government felt at the Committe stage that Girvan had more community of interest with Ayr than with Stranraer, and supported the amendment, which the Committee unanimously accepted.
Representations have since been received from Girvan Town Council, authorities in the proposed Dumfries and Galloway region and a number of individuals, but these reinforce the fact that there is a considerable division of opinion locally. It is one of those problems on which opinion seems to be divided. We have not received fresh evidence that we believe would justify our altering the view expressed in Committee and changing the proposal yet again.
Therefore, although I quite understand why my hon. Friend has made the case tonight and is suggesting that we should go for our original preference when considering the Commission's report, I do not believe that the arguments are strong enough to make us change again.

Amendment negatived.

Amendment made: No. 14, in page 144, line 11, leave out 'divisions of Kilsyth East, Kilsyth West' and insert:
'division of Kilsyth West; the polling district of Kilsyth East (Banton)'.—[Mr. Younger.]

Mr. Maclennan: I beg to move Amendment No. 363, in page 144, leave out lines 29 and 30.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With this amendment we are to discuss Amendment No. 364, in page 144, line 31, leave out
'(except the district of Tongue and Farr)'.

Mr. Younger: Would it be for the convenience of the hon. Gentleman and the House also to take Amendments Nos. 365, 366 and 367, the next group of amendments selected?

Mr. Maclennan: I would prefer not to do so. Although both groups of amendments affect the county of Sutherland, there are very different considerations.
The purpose of Amendments Nos. 363 and 364 is to transfer from the district authority of Caithness to the district authority of Sutherland the districts of Tongue and Farr, lying on the north coast of the county of Sutherland.
When the Wheatley Commission initially reported, it proposed that a district authority should be created consisting of the greater part of the county of Ross and Cromarty and the greater part of the county of Sutherland, but excluding the districts of Tongue and Farr from that new district, which it proposed should be connected with the new district of Caithness.
It is the view of the overwhelming majority of those living in the districts of Tongue and Farr, and particularly of the district council, that when they gave evidence to the commission supporting the transfer of the parishes of Tongue and Farr to the Caithness council they did so in the expectation that a new authority embracing Ross-shire would be created. It was felt that probably the centre of such a district authority would not be Dornoch, as at present, but Dingwall, lying further to the south, and it made very little sense, as they saw it, to have the parishes of Tongue and Farr


linked to the district that was to be governed from the headquarters of Dingwall. That underlines the acquiescence in the initial proposal. However, the situation was changed when the Government decided not to accept the Wheatley recommendation on the district of Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty but rather to have a separate district for Sutherland. It was felt, and it has been strongly expressed to me, that the district of Tongue and Farr should be brought back into the historical unity of Sutherland.
There are some quite respectable arguments which have been put forward in support of retaining the proposed connection of Tongue and Farr with the county of Caithness. I shall refer briefly to them. It is the case that a substantial number of people living in those two parishes travel daily to work at Dounreay in Caithness. The shopping centre for most of those people is Thurso. Many of the existing services are based upon Thurso. However, there are important differences, both geographical and economic, between Tongue and Farr and Caithness, as I think the Under-Secretary of State will concede.
The crofting nature of the parishes of Tongue and Farr is still predominant and the character of the area is much more closely allied to that of Sutherland as a whole. There is a further point, which has given rise to considerable anxiety, relating to the existence of the junior secondary school at Farr. The educational function is not, of course, the function of the district. However, it is apprehended in the north of Sutherland that if the district of Tongue and Farr is joined to the district of Caithness there is a possibility that the local authorities would look unfavourably upon continuing the junior secondary school at Farr.
That is of less concern, however reasonable or unreasonable it may be. As education is a regional function it is not wholly reasonable. None the less, it is a real anxiety. The over-riding concern stems from the fact that Sutherland for many years has been a single entity and Gaelic speaking until remarkably recently. Indeed, in part of the district of Tongue and Farr Gaelic is still quite a common language. I refer particularly to Melness

on the west side of the Kyle of Tongue, which, if the Government's proposals went through, would be connected with Caithness. The historic unity is something which the people of the area are anxious to have preserved.
There is the further point that the population of the district of Sutherland is already very small. It is in the region of 12,000 and declining. The people of Sutherland as a whole do not wish to see the district rendered any smaller. The district council, at my request, carried out a survey of opinion in the Tongue and Farr area. Each of the councillors went round his or her area asking the people in which district they would prefer to be. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in Sutherland. The figures were of the order of two to one in favour of remaining in Sutherland.
The point must be made that the county council for Strathhalladale made a strong case for the two parishes being transferred to Caithness. In a matter of this kind, the local functions of the district being so relatively minor—I have already complained of that to the Under-Secretary of State—it is reasonable to give way to the views of the people most directly affected.
I think that the views of the people most directly affected are quite clear. The county council—and Sutherland is perhaps not always known for the consistency of its approach to these events—has considered the matter on a number of occasions, and each time has concluded that it is desirable that Farr and Tongue should remain in the country. I hope that the Government will accede to that request.

1.15 a.m.

Mr. Younger: I accept that this is an extremely difficult problem. Perhaps it is a small matter in terms of population compared with the rest of Scotland, but it is extraordinarily difficult to assess where the balance of the right decision lies. One thing which has not changed is the official view of the various bodies which have looked at this matter. They have never wavered from their view that the real community of interest of the parishes of Tongue and Farr in fact and in the practice of daily life works towards
The Wheatley Commission originally proposed that Tongue and Farr be included in the Caithness district because Thurso served as a centre not only for the western half of Caithness but also for the adjacent part of Sutherland. After the publication of the White Paper, both Sutherland County Council and Tongue and Farr District Council accepted this boundary as reflecting accurately local community of interest.
There has been a change of view by both these authorities, each for slightly different reasons, but I do not think that this alters the fact that the genuine community of interest of the people who live their lives there and the way in which they practise daily lives lead one to conclude, as it led Wheatley and the Government originally to conclude, that the community of interest lies with Caithness.
I accept that there may be other views among many of the people living there. This is an important point and it is valuable to have had a survey done on the point. But it is true that it is very much easier usually, when one is asking for this sort of opinion, to get one which favours the status quo than one which favours any sort of change, and this is a change in an area which looks at present to Sutherland County Council for its services.
I would find it difficult to go in the face of what I feel sure is the genuine community of interest here. I understand the views of the hon. Gentleman and of his constituents and I am grateful to him for putting them. I accept that the southern lobe of the Tongue and Farr area around Altnaharra may have stronger links with the rest of Sutherland than with Caithness, and I propose to refer this to the Boundary Commission to determine a definitive boundary at an early date, which might alter the positioning of the border of Tongue and Farr parishes, possibly towards the Sutherland area if the commission so decides. But on the generality of the question I feel that the community of interest genuinely is towards Caithness and that in all consistency we should stick to it.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Maclennan: I beg to move Amendment No. 365, in page 144, line 33.

leave out 'the electoral division of Kincardine' and insert:
'the burgh of Tain; the electoral divisions of Kincardine Edderton and Tain'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With this we shall take the following Amendment: No. 366, in page 145, line 5, leave out 'Tain'.
No. 367, in page 145, line 8, leave out:
'the electoral division of Edderton and Tain'
They, too, stand in the name of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan).

Mr. Maclennan: The purpose of the amendments is to transfer to Sutherland the parish of Tain and the electoral division of Edderton and Tain. The background to this group of amendments is in the Government's White Paper in which precisely such a proposal was made, for reasons which seemed to the Government good at the time and which were highly welcome to those living in my constituency. Once the Government had decided to reject the Wheatley Commission's proposals for the single district authority of Sutherland and the County of Ross they embarked on rectification of the boundary of Sutherland to treat the Dornoch Firth as a single entity so that the southern boundary of Sutherland would not run along the river but include both sides of the strath to take in the parish of Kincardine and the parishes of Edderton and Tain.
This proposal seems to me a lot of sense in economic terms. It is obvious that the two sides of the Dornoch Firth should be more closely linked than they are at present. The Under-Secretary knows my view, which strengthens every day, that they should be linked by a bridge. When the Secretary of State put forward these proposals they were welcomed, I understand, by the burgh of Tain as well as the County Council of Sutherland, hut, I understand, soundings which were made in the landward area of Tain and Edderton did not reflect the same unanimity of view, so there is a division of opinion about the merits of this proposal.
Nevertheless, I think the Government's view was right, as I have already told the Under-Secretary, and I hope that he will have the strength of mind and purpose to revert to the reasoning which


led to the proposals being put in the White Paper. This is the more important, perhaps, in the light of the Government's refusal to accede to the request in the earlier amendment that Tongue and Farr should be included in the County of Sutherland. He has by his earlier decision succeeded in lopping off a large part of the historic unity of Sutherland, and a substantial number of people have been transferred out of it—not, of course, in geographic reality, nor, indeed, in way of life, but they will sense a separation. I hope that he will consider that he has done enough to cut up Sutherland and that he will look with favour upon the estuarial unity of the Dornoch Firth and accede to this proposal.

Mr. Younger: The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) has given a very fair account of the events which led to this. We had two conflicting pieces of evidence which led us to different opinions at various times. We originally included the burgh and district of Tain in the proposed Sutherland district because we took the view then that there were sufficient links between the two sides of the Dornoch Firth to justify this, at the same time making an increase in Sutherland's size and population, a consideration which was uppermost in our minds at that time, because of the decision to make a larger number of districts, which inevitably tends to produce smaller districts and problems of size.
It rapidly became apparent after this decision had been announced, when discussions were held with some of the local authorities concerned, that there was a strong feeling about the wrongness of splitting Easter Ross. The feeling was that Easter Ross, including Tain, was in itself a coherent community which should not be divided. It was accepted that while Invergordon and Tain served as local centres within Easter Ross, the areas around both these looked southwest, towards Dingwall for many more specialised services in the daily lives of the people living there. For instance—and this is only one example—Tain is the centre of public transport services for the whole of Easter Ross and the trends at present suggest that there will be

increasing travel-to-work links with the Invergordon developments.
The structure in the Bill recognises the strong community of interest within Easter Ross and the connections between Easter Ross and Dingwall. It leaves the north-west part of the Tain district, the parish of Kincardine from the upper Oykel Valley to Ardgay, in the Sutherland district, particularly because of the pattern of settlements and the lines of communication.
Although the hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that we must be concerned about the size of the Sutherland district, particularly after the parish of Tongue and Farr, or most of it comes out of it, we must still bear in mind that the community of interest which applies to those who will be living in the future Sutherland district is a firm basis upon which the new area can have some meaning. If we were to add Tongue and Farr and Tain this would increase the resources of the Sutherland district by a large amount and it would have been at the expense of cutting across a natural community in Easter Ross.
I have no doubt that even after this is done—that is after Tain is put back into Easter Ross—Sutherland will still have sufficient resources to discharge the functions we are giving to it. I am sorry not to be able to respond to the hon. Gentleman's request because I know that he feels strongly about it, having come to see me about it some time ago. I am afraid I do not feel that it would be right to split the natural community in Easter Ross to increase the size of the Sutherland district.

Mr. Ross: To what extent will the Government be able to refer a matter like this—and it is difficult for those of us who are not au fait with the local situation to decide—to the Boundary Commission? It would be better for many of these problems to be settled fairly objectively, if possible.

Mr. Younger: It is possible to refer anything to the Boundary Commission. There are a number of things which I have given assurances will be referred to the Commission at once. This is a rather more major matter than other subjects which we have referred. This is


a large community in terms of the surrounding Tain area and I would not like to create uncertainty by saying that this was to be referred to the Commission.
Any question of the edges of this area which the right hon. Gentleman felt should be referred could be so referred. It would be a mistake to use the Commission at this stage to let us escape from taking what is a rather difficult decision. I am afraid that following all the discussion that has taken place, with the hon. Gentleman and with the local authorities concerned, we have the difficult and invidious task of taking a decision, right or wrong. We have a considerable amount of evidence supporting what we propose, not only from the Boundary Commission but from other sources. I am afraid that the time has come to take a decision.

Mr. Maclennan: I confess that I am extremely unhappy about the Under-Secretary's decision and even more unhappy about the inflexibility of his reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). This does not involve any principle at all. It is a matter of geographic history and gradual economic development. His reply to my initial remarks indicated the over-preoccupation with the past which has characterised the Government's whole approach to development in the Moray Firth area. It is wrong to seek to confine developments in Easter Ross to one very narrow strip of coastal land. The whole of this area in Easter Ross and East Sutherland will become a single economic area and it is bound to be divided artificially at district level.
1.30 a.m.
When the bridge across the Dornoch Firth is built, the community of interest between Dornoch, the eastern part of Sutherland and Tain will be at least as strong as, if not stronger, than any interest which at present links Tain to areas to the south like Dingwall and Invergordon. The Minister might find if he consulted his hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) that there is not so much a community of interest between Tain and Dingwall as rivalry, which explains the initial desire of Tain to come in with the eastern part of Sutherland.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will reconsider his unwillingness even to consider the possibility of the matter being referred to the Boundary Commission.

Mr. Dalyell: It is about nine hours since I last intervened in the debate. It often happens that important issues surface in the middle of the night. What is the philosophy of referring questions to the Boundary Commission? Will the Minister assure us that where there are changes, for example, in travel-to-work patterns and in the siting of factories the Scottish Office will be liberal in referrals to the commission?

Mr. Younger: With the leave of the House, I will reply to the hon. Gentleman. I would expect the Secretary of State—and I hope, his successors—to regard the Boundary Commission as ready to have matters referred to it as and when appropriate. The Bill gives power to the Secretary of State to refer matters to the Boundary Commission at any time.
I do not want to give the impression that we would think of using the Boundary Commission for major changes all the time, but the arrangements are very flexible and I shall certainly see that where major changes of circumstances arise the matter will be referred to the commission. I will try to see that this is liberally interpreted.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 17 in page 146, line 49, leave out 'by Cowdenbeath'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With this we will take Government Amendments Nos. 18, 20 and 21.

Mr. Younger: These are drafting amendments merely to adopt the official and more precise description of the Gray Park polling district used to define the boundary between Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline districts. This will be more convenient for the usage of the electoral returning officers in the course of their work.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 18 in page 146, line 50, leave out 'station area' and insert 'district'.—[Mr. Younger.]

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 19 in page 147, line 3, leave out 'North Fife' and insert 'North East Fife'.
The amendment changes the name of the "North Fife" district back to "North East Fife" to accord with the local wishes. In the original consultations on names "North East Fife" was suggested by three authorities in the area and by a joint meeting. "North Fife" had no support. After the changes had been made in the original layout of Fife we considered that the name "North East Fife", which was wanted by the majority of authorities in the area, should be returned to.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 20, in page 147, line 18, leave out 'by Cowdenbeath'.

No. 21, in line 19, leave out 'station area' and insert 'district'.

No. 22, in line 20, column 1, leave out 'Forth' and insert 'Lothian'.—[Mr. Younger.]

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 23, in line 25, leave out 'electoral division of Abercorn' and insert
'electoral divisions of Abercorn, Winchburgh East and Winchburgh West'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With this amendment, it will be convenient to discuss Government Amendment No. 24.

Mr. Younger: These amendments taken together transfer the electoral divisions of Winchburgh East and Winch-burgh West from the City of Edinburgh district to the West Lothian district. We have considered the position of Winch-burgh further in the light of representations from all the local authorities concerned supported by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), who has been to see me about the matter.
It is now clear that the connections of Winchburgh with Edinburgh are very much less close than those of Kirkliston, Dalmeny and South Queensferry, which are to remain part of the City of Edinburgh district. The community of interest of Winchburgh at district level is pre-

dominantly westwards, reflected in the strength of communication links with Broxburn and Linlithgow, in the travel to work patterns towards these centres, and in the use of shopping and recreational facilities there made by the residents of Winchburgh, as well as in its character as a largely mining community.
I think that these changes will be welcomed in the areas concerned. Certainly I believe that they have the support of the hon. Member for West Lothian, and I hope that the House w ill accept them.

Mr. Dalyell: On behalf of the local authorities, the people of Winchburgh and myself, I should like unequivocally to thank the Under-Secretary for his courtesy and for the way in which he agreed to do what we all thought right in terms of Winchburgh. However, I am still unhappy about Dalmeny and South Queensferry. I am sceptical about whether the inquiries which have been made have revealed the true feeling in Queensferry and Dalmeny which, especially in the light of the Fife decision, I believe is in favour of West Lothian.
I ask the Under-Secretary precisely what kind of inquiries have been made recently in the case of Dalmeny and Queensferry? I believe this so-called departmental inquiry to have been rather desultory. I cannot find a single person in Queensferry or Dalmeny who was consulted. What consultations have taken place?
In the course of the debate on the previous amendment, I took the opportunity to ask about referrals to the Boundary Commission. As Hewlett Packard grows and certainly as oil developments take place, the relationship between Edinburgh and Queensferry will probably change. If it does, I should like to see a referral to the Boundary Commission in two or three years.
I hope that the Government are seized of the fact that there is real disquiet in country areas neighbouring cities that they will be swamped by the cities. It was one proposition to go along the lines of a divided Fife. From the point of view of Queensferry and Dalmeny people, it is totally different. Fife will be by itself. But here are they spatch-cocked in with this enormous and famous


city of Edinburgh. I doubt whether it is good for the people of Queensferry and Dalmeny that they should be so spatchcocked.

Mr. Younger: I very much appreciate the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I know that he has reported to me that some of his constituents feel very upset about this change. I can understand people in South Queensferry and Kirkliston feeling that they do not wish to be sucked into the edge of a great city. That is very natural, and we have many other cases where people feel that way. But we have to look at the genuine community of interest as people live their lives. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have taken seriously his representations and done our best to look at and study as many of the details as we can with convenience and sense in this matter.
South Queensferry and Kirkliston are nearer to Edinburgh than to any one centre in West Lothian. They have strong travel-to-work connections with Edinburgh. Over 20 per cent, of the resident employed population of South Queens-ferry, for instance, work in Edinburgh, and Kirkliston is visibly expanding as a commuter-based settlement.
I have looked at accessibility. South Queensferry is eight miles from Edinburgh and is comparable with a place like Currie, which is in the Edinburgh district, and has direct road and rail links, but it is 11 miles from Linlithgow and 14 miles from Bathgate. That is not the be all and end all, but it is a tangible difference.
There are 151 each-way rail services per week to Edinburgh, and the journey time is 14 minutes. There are 385 bus services each way per week to Edinburgh, taking 25 minutes, which is again comparable with Currie, whereas there are only 38 bus services each way to Broxburn and none direct to Bathgate or Linlithgow.
From the information I have been able to obtain that is a reasonably accurate assessment of the public transport facilities. Although we may sometimes feel cynical about them, those, after all, are supposed to reflect the needs of the people and their desire for travel.
Reverting to the travel-to-work situation, I think I gave a figure of over 20

per cent. The actual figure is 27 per cent., whereas the figure for the rest of West Lothian is 5·6 per cent. These figures probably seem soulless to those who are concerned, but we must be objective. South Queensferry has natural links with Edinburgh. However, if circumstances changed substantially the situation would be looked at again.

Mr. Carmichael: Are the dates for those figures the dates that were given in Committee? In other words, are they 10 years or more old?

Mr. Younger: These were the shopping patterns, which were rather old because of the retail survey. However, the transport arrangements can be looked up to date by studying the time tables.

Mr. Dalyell: At quarter to two in the morning I do not propose to keep hon. Members waiting on long-drawn-out arguments about particular points, as they have their own problems. However, I should like this to be regarded as an open question over the years. If it does not work out, I hope that the Government of the day will look favourably on a change of the Act.

Amendment agreed to.

Further amendments made: No. 24, in page 147, line 32, leave out 'electoral division of Abercorn)' and insert:
'electoral divisions of Abercorn, Winchburgh East and Winchburgh West)'.

No. 25, in page 148, line 15, leave out from 'electoral" to "West)' in line 16 and insert:
'division of Kilsyth West; the polling district of Kilsyth East (Banton))'.—[Mr. Younger.]

Mr. Mackintosh: I beg to move Amendment No. 27, in page 148, columns 2 and 3, leave out lines 19 to 41 and insert:

Eyemouth
Eyemouth and East District of Berwickshire.


Duns
Duns and the northern half of the Middle District of Berwickshire.


Coldstream
Coldstream and the southern half of the Middle District of Berwickshire.


Lauder
Lauder and the West District of Berwickshire.


Kelso
Kelso Burgh and District.

Jedburgh Burgh and District


Hawick
Hawick Burgh and District.


Melrose
Melrose Burgh and District.


Galashiels
Galashiels, and the electoral divisions of Stow and Her-riot and the northern half of the north district of Selkirkshire.


Selkirk
Selkirk and the southern half of the north district of Selkirkshire and the southern district.


Innerleithen Peebles
Innerleithen and district.


Peebles
Peebles together with Peebles, Linton and Broughton districts'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand that it will meet the convenience of the House if with this amendment we discuss Amendment No. 245, in page 2, line 1 [Clause1], after 'region', insert 'except the Borders region'.

Mr. Mackintosh: I will be as brief as possible. The point concerns district authorities within the Borders Region.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) and I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) whether he would be kind enough to move an amendment along these lines in Committee. It was difficult, being excluded from the Committee, for us to put our point and it was not moved exactly in the way that we wished, although we were deeply indebted to my hon. Friend for putting forward our argument. He argued that as a second-tier authority in the Borders it would be better to have strengthened community councils. The Minister rebutted this proposal by pointing out that we did not want a different system in the Borders compared with the rest of Scotland. That was a perfectly sound and reasonable response to the point.
I wish to put forward a different argument. We wish to have the same two-tier structure as the rest of Scotland. The Borders Region is much smaller in terms of population and resources. It does not make sense in a smaller and weaker region to make the districts as large as in the rest of Scotland, and we want smaller districts to accord with the geographical distribution and arrangements within this particularly small region.
As the Under-Secretary knows, the Borders Region, with 97,000 inhabitants, is smaller in inhabitants and resources

than the average of the second-tier district authorities proposed for the rest of Scotland. What worries us in the Borders Region is that with this type of small region in terms of population and resources it is possible that the four new districts proposed by the Government—rather amorphous districts with no history, except the old county of Peebles—will not have the strength or the viability that will be necessary, and rapidly the Borders will become a one-unit government. It will become a single-unit government, and that will not fit in with the two-tier system which the Minister is seeking to establish.
The amendment suggests that instead of four districts based on rather vague geographical areas—except for one, and that is the former county of Peebles—there should be 12 districts, each based on one of the existing active small burghs in the area with its hinterland area. The amendment suggests how the area could be divided among 12 existing small burghs and retain their historic connections and their local enthusiasms which is seen in all the Borders festivals and sports and rugger club rivalries. These activities can be of tremendous help in local government in stimulating each to emulate the other in house-building programmes and in attempts to beautify and improve the burgh and its precincts. We would in that way get viable district authorities which, though smaller than the average district, would be in the same proportion to other districts as the Borders Region is to the average region in Scotland.
I am proposing a miniaturisation job which is in keeping with the Government's own ideas in regional terms. In population terms the Government have created a region that is far smaller than any other region and smaller than the average district. It is therefore legitimate to say that we should carry the logic through for this geographically thinly populated area and have smaller but essentially viable district units.
The unit that I have suggested would average 8,000 persons per district as opposed to the average proposed at present of 24,000. The chief function of these districts would be housing, a duty which they could well perform. Burghs such as Eyemouth and Kelso, without this


degree of population and without a hinterland, have satisfactory housing records. They have done this partly because of their intense loyalty, historic traditions and a desire to see their burghs flourishing. They could build on that if they were enlarged into districts, as I proposed.
I am not asking for a fundamental change in the two-tier structure, the powers or the functions set out in the Bill. I am merely asking for a greater number of districts and seeking to capitalise on existing local patriotism and sentiment to make the system more viable.

Mr. David Steel: I warmly support the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh). The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that neither he nor I served on the Committee, and this is the only opportunity that the House has of discussing local government reform as it affects the Borders Region.
It is worth casting our minds back to how we arrived at the present situation in the Bill. The Royal Commission originally recommended that the Borders Region as we know it in the Bill should be part of the South-East Region which it recommended and that a district council should be created which would cover exactly the same area as is now proposed by the Government to be the Borders region.
In their White Paper, the Government responded—I am eternally grateful for this—to the very strong representation from the Borders Region, and altered the Wheatley recommendations so as to create the Borders Region as it now is in the Bill. Having done that, they then seemed to feel—this is where they made a mistake—that it was necessary artificially to divide the Borders Region into four districts of the same ilk as those in other parts of Scotland. Having done that, they then decided that these districts were rather small, and therefore removed from them three major powers which other districts will have. The result is profoundly unsatisfactory.
I therefore proposed one solution, my Amendment No. 245, which was to make the regional authority of the Borders a unitary authority, in the hope that more powers would be given to the community councils based on the existing burghs. We have already had a debate on the

community councils. I do not agree with the Government's view, but they have stuck by it and it is now clear that their concept of community councils is much more limited than I would have wished.
Therefore, the solution of the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian is quite right. Taking into account the fact that, under the Government's proposals, community councils are to be given no statutory powers, it makes sense to miniaturise the framework of local government, accept the pattern that runs throughout the Bill and accept district authorities based on the existing burghs.
This matter was raised in a very short debate in Committee by the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon). I do not mean it unkindly when I say that he did not pursue the amendment with the vigour and eloquence with which the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian and I would have wished to do. In reply, the Under Secretary said:
… I do not see any evidence of the need for a completely different structure in the Borders".
The amendment now meets that point, because it proposes basically the same structure.
The Under-Secretary also said,
…I do not think it would he welcomed by the people in the Borders."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, First Scottish Standing Committee; 8th February 1973, c. 329]
I must emphatically put the Minister right about that, if he is not immediately satisfied by the fact that the two hon. Members representing the area are themselves agreed. I have discussed this with many people in existing local government. It is fair to say that they themselves have not pressed their case with the Government as strongly as they might have done, because they were so obsessed in the early days of discussion with escaping from the clutches of Edinburgh that everything else was subsidiary. Having won that point, it is fair to say that they let the other argument go by default. But I put forward this argument in the debate on the White Paper in the Scottish Grand Committee in July last year.
It is only more recently that I have got from the local authority personnel in the Borders area a very strong feeling, as they move nearer to the reality of local government reorganisation, that perhaps the


district authorities as set out in the Bill are a mistake. The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian said that Peeblesshire, or Tweeddale as it will be called in the Bill, was the only one of the district authorities that exists at present and that the other three were new creations. Accepting that this is so, I am afraid that the structure of Peebles County Council adds weight to my belief that the district authorities, with their limited powers, will not be a success.
I am not saying that Peebles County Council is not an efficient body. I think it is, but, from a democratic point of view, there is no stampede to serve on it. Since the war there have been very few elections in any of its electoral districts. Peebles is geographically large, while small in population.
Given the peculiar difficulties of the Borders, the answer is to focus on the natural communities to which people feel an intense loyalty. They are not the counties or the artificial districts but the burghs and their surrounding countryside. The Government should seize the opportunity of these natural loyalties and the peculiar characteristics of the Border burghs, their intense local and community activity, as reflected in the common ridings, in the amateur operatic societies, in the rugby clubs and in the community activity which in many other parts of the country has withered away but which is very strong in the Border communities.
Of necessity, we are rather late in the process of this legislation in raising this fundamental matter. But I am convinced that the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian has got exactly right some of the feeling which exists in the area. It will work and would be far more meaningful than the scheme in the Bill.

Mr. Younger: I agree that this is well worth discussing and that this is the time to discuss it. I am grateful to the two hon. Members for raising it.
The pattern proposed in the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) is based firmly and rightly on community of interest between town and country, which was used in defining all the new areas and which was suggested by the

hon. Member in his correspondence with us.
There is one small point, of which I make nothing, but technically it would not be possible to accept the amendment as it stands because the wording is not sufficiently well defined. Four areas have the expression "northern half", which is not sufficiently good for statute and would have to be changed if the amendment were accepted. I merely put that on record. It is not a fundamental objection.
The present districts in the Borders Region number four. The smallest is Tweeddale with 14,000 population and the largest Roxburgh at 36,000. The others are Ettrick Forest with 32,000 and Merse with 17,000.
Because the size and resources of these authorities are smaller than those in the rest of Scotland, the allocation of functions for districts in the Borders Region differs from those in the central belt.

Mr. Mackintosh: I said that the population of the region would be smaller than the average for the districts in the rest of Scotland and that the scale is less.

Mr. Younger: I took the hon. Gentleman's point, but my point is that because the districts are by their nature, on the small side, that is why the functions are different. The resources for the districts which the hon. Gentleman proposes have to be seen against the fact that the very scale of the Borders Region may be smaller and that although the scale of districts is smaller they have the same functions apart from differences in planning. They will not exercise responsibility for local planning, building control or libraries but they will still have a range of controls.
It is all very well to say that the scale is different and that it can be miniaturised. I admire the idea but we have to be practical and to look at the size of the district and see whether they are big enough to carry out these functions. These are very small districts. The proposed Duns, Coldstream and Innerleithen would have populations of 4,000, while Lauder district would have 5,000, while Jedburgh, Melrose and Selkirk would have 7,000 and the largest would be Galashiels with 15,000 under the


hon. Member's suggestion. Some districts in the Highlands have smaller populations because of the geographical circumstances, but this is not acceptable as a general pattern and none of those is nearly as small as the majority of districts suggested here.
These authorities have to discharge a range of functions, for example, housing, fire, refuse collection and disposal, environmental health, amenity services and licensing and other functions. To carry out even these functions, district authorities will require a compliment of specialists and technical staff which would be beyond the resources of a district with a population of only 4,000.
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With all our enthusiasm to be flexible and to try to respond to the needs of the area and so on, we must remember that we would be putting on to these areas duties which they simply would not be able to do up to the standard of everywhere else in Scotland, as the population would expect, with such small resources as they have.

Mr. David Steel: Will the hon. Gentleman elaborate on which of these functions is not at present carried out by existing small town councils? Taking scavenging as an example, I have heard some concern expressed that scavenging arrangements may be less efficient, for example, in the burgh of Lauderdale under the new arrangements, whereas they are at present efficiently carried out.

Mr. Younger: That is possibly so. I would never say that necessarily the largest authority is the most efficient and the smallest authority is the least efficient. We can all think of examples where the contrary can be shown.
We must try to be consistent to some extent in our aims in putting forward the Bill. Surely we are all aiming to try to tailor the size of the new units to the task that we are putting upon them. I would be the first to agree that the achievements of some of the Border burghs, some of which have quite small populations, are very much to be commended, I have visited some of them. They do a first-class job with very small resources. But everyone would agree that, however good those have been in the past, it is not a criteria that we can

place in any of this local government reform. We cannot say that we shall not reform particular authorities because they have done well. That is no basis for reforming local government. If we did that we should get a complete shambles all over Scotland.
We are trying to produce a system that makes coherent sense all over Scotland. One thing which would not be right would be to impose on such small districts the functions that we are putting on the Border district.

Mr. Mackintosh: I accept the general drift of the hon. Gentleman's argument on the basis of the general approach to the Bill. The weakness in this particular case is that he and the Government have departed from Wheatley in proposing a region of 97,000 people, whose population resources is further below the minimum set for education, social services and so on by the Departments concerned than the districts that I am proposing are below the minimum for their functions such as housing. If the hon. Gentleman is prepared to take the argument for the region, he should be prepared to take it for the district.

Mr. Younger: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I say that that is a brilliant statistical argument. But if we tried to persuade the future district clerk of one of these very small districts that he should not worry about the fact that he could not get enough resources to raise the necessary technical staff to carry out these functions because the size of his district was not proportionately so much less than the size of districts elsewhere, any more than the Borders Region is smaller than other regions, he would say that we were producing a very good intellectual argument but did not have our feet firmly on the ground.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that I am being rude to him, but we must be practical and think in terms of a district clerk trying to run an office and a set-up with resources produced by only 4,000 people.
I am sorry to appear negative about this matter. I appreciate that the giving of regional status to the Borders was a risk that we took. It will be welcomed by the people of the Borders. Having


taken that risk, which many people before and since have told us was a risk which we should not have taken—there are some minuses as well as pluses from the point of view of those on the Borders—we have to accept some district organisation which might not be thought ideal by the Border burghs and so on. But we cannot make them any smaller than they are. I hope that the House will reject the amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Mackintosh: I beg to move, Amendment No. 28, in page 148, line 20, column 2, leave out 'Ettrick Forest' and insert 'Ettrick and Lauderdale'.
This is a small point of nomenclature. We are now stuck with the four districts in the Borders. Three of them are artificial creations. One is Tweeddale, the former county of Peebles-shire, but there is a curious L-shaped area in the centre, formed out of sections of three previous counties, which it is proposed to name Ettrick Forest. This name is highly unsatisfactory because "Ettrick" applies to only a half of it and there is no forest. It is somewhat confusing, to put it mildly.
I have had representations from the borough of Lauder and the district pointing out that "Ettrick and Lauderdale would be a better name—[Interruption.]—in this case it is not invalidated, because this gentleman happens to support it. Although I do not like all things dukes and earls say, the fact that they say them does not make them nonsense. "Ettrick and Lauderdale" would be more appropriate, more historic and more traditional than the somewhat misleading title of "Ettrick Forest".

Mr. Brewis: I, too, have had representations on the point. I support what the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) said and hope that my hon. Friend will be able to include "Lauderdale".

Mr. David Steel: I am sorry to break up the happy partnership which has existed up to now, but I cannot agree with the amendment. I hasten to say that I do not necessarily agree either with the name "Ettrick Forest". The hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) has made a legitimate objection to it.
On an earlier amendment the Under-Secretary spelled out how a name had been arrived at and who had said what about it. I hope that he will tell us where the name "Ettrick Forest" came from in terms of opinion. I am aware that "Ettrick Forest" was chosen because the Ettrick Forest originally covered roughly they are outlined on the map which the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian brandished. I am not clear whether it extended as far as the borough of Lauder.
However, "Ettrick Forest" is a more accurate description than the hon. Gentleman's choice of "Ettrick and Lauderdale". If that were adopted I believe that there would be strong protests. The largest town in the area is Galashiels. There is a stronger case for "Ettrick Forest" than for "Ettrick and Lauderdale", but I am not particularly enthusiastic about either. I cannot see anything wrong with the existing name of Selkirkshire or a neutral name such as "the Melrose District", Melrose being a town in the area. I hope that the Under-Secretary will not accept the amendment.

Mr. Maclennan: I have a soft spot for the noble Earl the former Conservative Member for Caithness and Sutherland. This is indeed an historical name which it would be a pity to lose sight of. Notwithstanding anything that the noble Earl has said, the burgh of Lauder is greatly in favour of this. As Lauderdale was the last and most sturdy member of the famous cabal in the seventeenth century, it would be amusing to keep it in Scottish local authority terminology.

Mr. Younger: To continue our romantical mystery tour of Scotland, we are in Ettrick Forest. I do not know whether it is because it is now after two o'clock, but I feel a definite aura of flexibility affecting me.
On the question of names, we have always tried, and right until the last moment in the Bill will continue to try, to meet the wishes of those in the area. In giving names to authorities we have always tried to consult the existing authorities in the area concerned or the appropriate joint committee set up to consider local government reform.
Consultations on names were carried out in this case with six authorities in


the area. One proposed "Selkirk"; three proposed "Ettrick Forest"; two proposed "Ettrick". Therefore, "Ettrick Forest" was selected as being proposed by the majority, though not by an outstanding majority. Lauder Town Council did not respond to my hon. Friend's initial invitation to suggest names but it has recently made representations supported by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh), by the Earl of Lauderdale to the effect of the amendment we are now discussing.
It would certainly not be consistent with our general approach on the choosing of names for me to accept an amendment off the cuff at this time of night on Report. I give the assurance, however, that if it can be shown during the next few weeks before the Bill receives the Royal Assent that the majority of local authorities or the district advisory committee favour such a change, we should be happy to meet the majority wishes of the local people concerned if they have changed since we originally took our view. I hope that the hon. Member might feel that this is almost progress and I invite him to withdraw the amendment in view of that assurance.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Mackintosh: I beg to move Amendment No. 29, in page 148, column 3, leave out lines 31 and 32.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): With it it will be convenient to take Government Amendments Nos. 30, 31 and 32.

Mr. Mackintosh: The amendment asks that the parish of Hume and the electoral division of Hume and Nenthorn be transferred from the Roxburgh district into the district of Merse, as the inhabitants there wish. There is no doubt about the situation. A meeting of all the inhabitants of the parish produced something like 90 per cent. support for the transfer of the parish on the ground that they preferred the traditional linkage with Greenlaw and not Kelso. I met representatives of the inhabitants and I wrote to the Under-Secretary supporting their case and putting the argument before him.
I am sorry to introduce a discordant note at this late hour, but there was one aspect of the affair which I found slightly

distressing. After I had met representatives of the Government on this matter the Conservative candidate in the area also met representatives on the matter. A letter was written to me after my representations by the Under-Secretary on 23rd May explaining that the Government were prepared to concede on this point. For some reason the Scottish Office failed to deliver this letter to me until 10 days later when my secretary agitated the Department and the letter was found.
In the interim the Conservative candidate for the area was able first to hold a public meeting calling for the transfer and the next day he reported that he had received a letter personally written to him from the Secretary of State agreeing to a concession. The Conservative was therefore able to say that he had a direct wire to the Secretary of State who wrote him personal letters explaining concessions of this kind. The Member of Parliament received a letter from the Under-Secretary some seven days later when the news had already been released.
I think that it is expected in this House that hon. Members who make representations on such matters should be given information before members of the public, particularly opposing candidates. I hope that the Secretary of State will confirm that this is what happened. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman had anything to do with this. It is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. Nevertheless, I am glad that he has agreed to concede the point.

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Mr. Gordon Campbell: Government Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 seek to transfer the parish of Hume from the Roxburgh district to the Merse district.
The amendment moved by the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) goes further, seeking to move Nenthorn as well. On examining the position of these parishes further, the Government came to the conclusion that there was a case for transferring Hume but not a clear-cut case for transferring Nenthorn. We have been well aware of representations from a number of people in the area about these matters. There was no intention to do other than to inform the hon. Gentleman first, as he had been in touch with us, and he is the first person who should be informed. It


is clear from what he said that there was about 10 days' apparent delay between the dispatch of the letter and its reaching him. I shall look into that straight away.
I do not normally write direct to candidates, although normally a letter goes on my behalf. I shall look into that matter. Any member of the public, whether a candidate or not, who writes to me at the Scottish Office is entitled to a reply. Normally I do not sign the replies to such persons, though I or my hon. Friends at the Scottish Office sign replies to Members of Parliament.
I shall look into the missing 10 days, which are the basis of the hon. Gentleman's complaint, because he should have been informed first, and that was the intention. Various other people in the area who had made representations to the Scottish Office received letters signed on my behalf telling them about the Government's intention when the amendment had been tabled. Certainly the hon. Gentleman should have heard first. It was clearly a question of the letter not going to the correct address and not being forwarded that led to the trouble. The hon. Gentleman has been abroad. We have had trouble trying to trace him on occasions. I shall look into whether that was the problem on this occasion.

Mr. Mackintosh: A letter to the House of Commons usually finds me without very much difficulty. This is a perfectly adequate address. The letter had never been dispatched. That was the puzzling thing—not that it was dispatched and mislaid but that the copy was found in the Scottish Office. It is very unfortunate, because on the whole the right hon. Gentleman's officials normally behave with singular efficiency. Who failed to dispatch it?

Mr. Campbell: The trouble arises when Members are away and not at the House, and we need to get information to them quickly. I shall look into this extraordinary point of the letter not having been sent, although it was intended to be sent. I have only just heard about the matter, because I have had no complaint from the hon. Gentleman until now. I am in no position to give him an answer straight away.
In our amendments we are doing what the hon. Gentleman and the majority

of people in the area wanted at the end of the day. Therefore, I hope that our amendments will be accepted.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Were the letters to the Conservative candidate and a number of other people in the area sent after amendments had been put on the Order Paper?

Mr. Campbell: When the Government take a decision on a matter affecting a Member who has been in touch with us, as in this case, he is normally informed first, whether it is in the Recess or when Parliament is sitting. Other people who have made representations to the Scottish Office, members of the public and others, are normally informed as well at the appropriate time. When this decision was taken the intention was that the hon. Gentleman should be informed first and other people later. Clearly, something went wrong. I shall look into it, but I have had no notice of the matter and have been unable to look into it before.
The effect of the amendment is to do what the hon. Gentleman wishes.

Mr. Maclennan: My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) has raised an extremely important matter about Government practice in sending letters.

Mr. MacArthur: He should have raised it earlier.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Go back to sleep.

Mr. Maclennan: I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian said. It is a matter of extraordinary inconvenience to Members to have their letters sent anywhere but to the House of Commons. My hon. Friend and I represent large rural constituencies. My constituency covers 6,000 square miles. Letters sent to my constituency at the behest of the Scottish Office can spend time chasing around those 6,000 square miles when arrangements have been made for hon. Members' letters to be looked after properly. It is most unsatisfactory. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at the procedure again as it has given rise to considerable trouble to me on a number of occasions.

Mr. Campbell: May I reply, with the leave of the House? We take great


trouble, when hon. Members are due to get information, to try to ensure that the information reaches them quickly when it is not clear whether they are available through their House of Commons address. We normally take the trouble to make a telephone call to try to find out from hon. Members' secretaries or in some other way where hon. Members will be. If possible additional action is taken of that kind to ensure that hon. Members get their letters. I agree that when it is not possible to make contact in that way the House of Commons address is usually the best.

Mr. Robert Hughes: May I comment, with the leave of the House? I do not want to make too much of this matter. I know from personal experience how the right hon. Gentleman tries to give information to hon. Members which for perfectly valid reasons he wishes to make available to the Press. Naturally he wants to do hon. Members the courtesy of giving them the information. I had an occasion when a letter was held up over the weekend—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the Chair has been at fault in allowing this discussion to go too far. Hon. Members should be speaking to the amendment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bring his remarks to a conclusion.

Mr. Hughes: Many hon. Members make their own arrangements through the Post Office for mail to be forwarded. Apart from trying to find a Member's address the House of Commons Post Office could tell the Scottish Office the best address to which to send any mail.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made: No. 30, in page 148, line 31, leave out 'the electoral division of Hume and Nenthorn' and insert 'the parish of Nenthorn'.

No. 31, in page 148, line 41, at end insert 'the parish of Hume'.—[Mr. Gordon Campbell.]

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I beg to move Amendment No. 33, in page 149, line 15, at end insert:
'In the county of Dunbarton—the burghs of Bearsden, Clydebank, Milngavie; the district of Old Kilpatrick (except the electoral divisions of Bowling, Dunbarton)'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 379, in page 149, line 30. at end insert:
'Kilpatricks … In the county of Dunbarton—the Burghs of Bearsden, Milngavie and Clydebank; the district of Old Kilpatrick (except the electoral districts of Bowling, Dunbarton).'.

Mr. Campbell: The amendment restores the burghs of Bearsden, Clydebank, Milngavie and the adjoining landward areas to the Glasgow district. These areas were removed from Glasgow by the Standing Committee, which was, however, unable to reach a conclusion on an alternative allocation, thus creating a gap which at present exists in the Bill.
The Government have had to consider carefully what should be done about the situation, which needs to be put right. We have re-examined a wide range of evidence about Glasgow and the surrounding areas and have considered a number of alternative proposals: for example, the creation of a separate Kilpatricks district, with or without Drum-chapel; the inclusion of Bearsden and Milngavie in the Strathkelvin district with Clydebank in the Dumbarton district; the inclusion of Bearsden and Milngavie in the Glasgow district, leaving Clydebank, with or without Drum-chapel, a separate district in its own right; the inclusion of Bearsden, Milngavie and Clydebank in the Dumbarton district, or the division of Glasgow into four or five separate districts, with or without the peripheral areas.
The removal of Drumchapel from the Glasgow district is not justified in view of the very strong links between Knights-wood ward and the rest of Glasgow.
In the discussion in Committee my hon. Friend indicated the strength of the connections between Bearsden, Clydebank, Milngavie and the city of Glasgow saying that these burghs are a natural part of the Glasgow city community, socially, physically and economically. The Committee accepted, as the Government have done, the basic principle underlying the Wheatley Commission's recommendation, that the new local government areas should be defined to reflect the community of interest between centres of population and the areas around them.
I come now to accessibility. The centres of Bearsden, Clydebank and


Milngavie are respectively six, seven and eight miles from the centre of Glasgow on major roads. Public transport links are overwhelmingly with Glasgow. Of all the bus connections serving Milngavie, Bearsden and Clydebank 91 per cent., 90 per cent and 74 per cent. respectively are with the present city of Glasgow and there are also frequent suburban train services. Public transport links with centres in other districts are very much weaker, and in the case of Strathkelvin requires going into Glasgow.
The alternative solutions involving the association of Bearsden, Clydebank and Milngavie with other areas are unsatisfactory simply because of relative lack of community of interest these places have with anywhere other than Glasgow. For instance, to add the three burghs as a whole either to the Dumbarton or Strathkelvin district would conflict with what we know not only about their connections with Glasgow but also about the virtual absence of links on the one hand between Milngavie and Bearsden and Dumbarton and on the other between Clydebank and Strathkelvin. The addition of only Bears-den and Milngavie to Strathkelvin, as has been suggested in some quarters, is not justified in view of the very tenuous links between the centres of population. For example there are no public transport services. The centres of population are divided by the built up area of Glasgow city and its associated radial road network.
The creation of separate districts, either for Clydebank or for Bearsden and Milngavie, would not be an acceptable solution. They would have very limited resources for exercising the range of district functions.
What has happened is that it has been shown that it is much easier to agree in Committee to remove something from the Bill than it is to reach agreement on what is to take its place. The Government have looked at the various possibilities with care and have again come to the conclusion that what was originally in the Bill was the best solution for this area, and that which the Wheatley Commission recommended.

Mr. Hugh McCartney (Dumbartonshire, East): I expected far more from the Secretary of State than the statement he has just made to support putting back into

the Glasgow district what we were proposing to call the Kilpatricks district. He has not made one point of any relevance to the proposed new district authority either under the Wheatley Report or under the Bill. He talked simply about the alleged association between these areas and Glasgow insofar as transport arrangements are concerned. We all know that these arrangements are a regional function and in no way detract from or impinge upon the creation of the district authority in the Kilpatricks area, or any other area.
I draw the attention of hon. Members to what Wheatley said. In Chapter 6, headed "The Constitutional Framework", paragraph 113 asks:
What is local government for? Local government has a two-fold purpose. First, it exists to supply public services. These may be national services which have to be administered locally, or they may be services of a purely local character. The distinction is rarely clear cut, and we would prefer to put it that local government exists to provide services locally, on such scale and of such character as the nature of each service requires.
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In paragraph 114 the commission said:
Secondly, it exists to provide local government. This means that services are in a real sense locally controlled. There must be an element of choice exercisable locally. More than that, it is implicit that local authorities should in some degree provide a means for the self-expression of local communities.
I hope the Secretary of State will think carefully about that paragraph.
Again, in Chapter 18, "The Meaning of 'Community'", the commission said:
A local government unit is a complex thing. It is a unit for the administration of functions and the provision of services. That it what we have been concerned with in Part III of the Report. But it is also a geographical unit: it represents the people of a particular area. The area ought to be so chosen that within it there is as much as posible in common—a convergence of interest, affinities and sentiments. That is what we have in mind when we use the term 'community'.
In Chapter 7, "Basic Objectives", in paragraph 128, it says:
In our view, reorganisation should seek to secure for local government the following advantages.… Local government should be enabled to play a more important, responsible, and positive part in the running of the country—to bring the reality of government nearer to the people"—


and—
… should be equipped to provide services in the most satisfactory manner, particularly from the point of view of the people receiving the services.… Local government should constitute a system in which power is exercised through the elected representatives of the people, and in which those representatives are locally accountable for its exercise.… Local government should bring the people into the process of reaching decisions as much as possible, and enable those decisions to be made intelligible to the people.
Let us consider that paragraph in relation to what has happened and the Government's proposals in the White Paper and the Bill.
The Standing Committee, as the right hon. Gentleman correctly said, decided on 27th February that the area described as the Kilpatricks district did not properly belong to the Glasgow district—in other words, it had no community of interest with the Glasgow district. That is a completely different thing from saying what the Secretary of State tried to say, that the Standing Committee, for one reason or another—and I have already stated my reasons—could not take a decision to form a district to be known as the Kilpatricks district. In Committee and elsewhere we have heard differences of opinion whether it should or should not include Drumchapel, but in all the discussions those opposed to the proposition have confused regional functions with district functions. Considering what are district functions, and the alternative proposals which the Government are alleged to have considered after their defeat in Committee, it is evidence that the proposals which I made in Committee to detach that area from Glasgow were reasonable and sensible for local government and conformed to every tenet of Wheatley and also statements by the Government at various times, dating back to 1970 when the commission's report was being debated in the House.
I believe, without going into detail, that none of the other proposed alternatives in any way could constitute an area with a community of interest in the sense that we would wish. Therefore, the only two courses are either the original proposal, which was defeated in Committee, or that proposal plus the suggestion made by the Under-Secretary of State in Committee, forming the area

into a new district with the addition of Drumchapel. Geographically, that would be the perfect solution. There is an almost complete circle about six miles in diameter with its southern half a completely populated area in which Clydebank, Milngavie, Bearsden and old Kilpatrick are situated. The northern part is less populated and contains recreational land and the Kilpatrick Hills.
The roads and transport between the three burghs are suitable for anything required in a district of that size. The distance between each of the local authority headquarters is only about two miles. With 27·8 square miles or 17,820 acres, the area, excluding Drumchapel, is 1½ times as large as Aberden or Dundee and three times as large as the largest burgh. Again excluding Drumchapel, there is a population of 96,000-plus, which is still growing. All this indicates the extent to which the authority could be made viable.
I must emphasise what Wheatley said, which has been borne out in our local deliberations:
More than that, it is implicit that local authorities in some degree provide a means for the self-expression of local communities.
We have had in the area the deepest expression of local community interest anywhere in Scotland. We had polls in Milngavie and Bearsden and a referendum in Clydebank. In the Milngavie poll, 70 per cent. of the electorate voted and 95 per cent, of them supported a district of Bearsden, Clydebank, Milngavie and Old Kilpatrick. In Bearsden, 72 per cent. voted and 98 per cent. were in favour of such a district. These figures demonstrate cogently the expression of true local democracy on behalf of the local authorities in the area, with action committees formed from ordinary members of the community, supporting the proposals which I am putting forward now and which were put forward in Committee.
We must also consider the connection between Drumchapel and Glasgow. Today, Drumchapel and the area of Knightswood have drawn closer to Glasgow than to Clydebank, Bearsden or Milngavie. Until 1937 or 1938 Drum-chapel was associated with Dunbartonshire. To this day there are close connections in the churches, which belong to the Dunbarton Presbytery and not to


the Glasgow Presbytery. There are other connections through social and recreational organisations. The young people of Drumchapel use extensively the facilities of Milngavie, Bearsden and Clydebank. Various other close connections would be strengthened if Drum-chapel were included in that district.
The Wheatley Report states that local government exists to provide local services of such a scale and character that the nature of each service requires. In the proposed district every one of the functions for which the district would be responsible is being carried out by the local authorities in association with each other through the county council on the one hand and the Small Burghs Association on the other. They have had a long history of co-operation in exercising these functions.
These three burghs in the Kilpatricks area have for a long time had strong ties in social and recreational matters which would become even stronger with the formation of a district authority, ties which would develop an environmental situation which would be to the benefit of the people of Kilpatricks and of Glasgow. No sensible person would suggest that a district authority of the size that is proposed for Glasgow could exercise its functions in the interests of the people of Drumchapel. Clydebank, Bearsden and Kilpatricks better than those areas have been doing for themselves.
There are no natural boundaries to the south between the area and Glasgow. That does not detract from my case. The relationship between Renfrew, Coat-bridge and Airdrie and Glasgow, and between Motherwell, Hamilton and Cadzow and Glasgow in the boundary sense is similar to the relationship between Kilpatricks and Glasgow.
There is an economic inter-relationship and a close balance between one part of the district and another. There is an industrial complex, mainly around Clydebank. Milngavie provides some industry and Milngavie and Bearsden provide housing accommodation for many of the workers in Clydebank. People from Clydebank are employed in Bearsden and Milngavie, and there is a movement of population from Kilpatricks into all those areas.
2.45 a.m.
In the provision of services and facilities, likewise we have a common relationship. We have marketing, shopping, banking, cultural, social, educational, medical and administrative facilities which are complementary to each other. In terms of shopping facilities, the proposals for the development of shopping centres in all these areas approved by the Government, taking account of the provision required for the areas lying contiguous with the proposed Kilpatricks area, provide a form of development which Wheatley considered adequate for district authorities to be formed round.
The Secretary of State referred almost solely to traffic movements in both road and rail services. This is a function of the regional authority. But it is interesting to note that the road network that we have in this proposed Kilpatricks area not only links these sectors with Glasgow but links all the sectors themselves together. There is a comprehensive road system in the area. A transport service is provided by buses linking the whole area. We also have train services. Bearsden, Clydebank and Milngavie are all served by the Glasgow Northern electric train service or "Blue Trains". Three stations being in Bearsden, five in Clydebank one in Milngavie and one in Drumchapel. It is evident that even in transport arrangements for the area, the district has an adequate service.
In terms of traffic movements in the area, which is again a consideration for a district authority, according to the Greater Glasgow Transportation Study under the heading "Location of Activities" it is indicated that while on average less than one-third of the location of activities are within the Glasgow City area, two-thirds is either in the home area or in the rest of the conurbation. Therefore within this proposed district, no preponderant pull towards the Glasgow City area exists. The greater pull is elsewhere in that conurbation. Again this makes out the case for a district authority of Kilpatricks rather than attaching the area to the Glasgow City district.
It is said also on occasions that local migration in and out of this area indicates its strong connections with the proposed


Glasgow City district. This is a matter which should be taken with a pinch of salt as justification for not creating the Kilpatricks district. We all know that the desired result of the Government's own intervention in assisting the dispersal of population from Glasgow changes the whole pattern of migration trends, with movements out into new towns such as Cumbernauld and East Kilbride, the development of older towns such as Kirkintilloch, and the voluntary movement of people into areas such as Bearsden, Milngavie and Clydebank. This has changed the pattern, and it will probably continue. Therefore it does not affect the viability of the Kilpatricks area or any other area affected in this way as a district authority.
Wheatley also indicated that the circulation of daily and weekly newspapers was a factor which suggested some community of interest to justify the creation of a district authority. Bearsden was created as a burgh authority after the community had been created but before the local paper was first published. It is interesting to note that Bearsden was created a burgh after a sheriff's inquiry. Having listened to all the relevant evidence he came to the conclusion that Bearsden was a community in its own right, that it had no relationship with the City of Glasgow or with Dunbartonshire as a county, and that it could survive as a viable burgh authority.
The electors of Bearsden at that time voted overwhelmingly in favour of their desire to be described as a burgh authority and as a community with a community interest peculiar to itself.
We have in the rest of the area various local newspapers. It is evident that if a new Kilpatrick district were formed almost certainly a new Kilpatrick newspaper would be likely to be created to serve that area.
Considering all the criteria referred to in the Royal Commission's Report, I suggest that in the proposed Kilpatrick District we have everyhing that is required to justify the creation of a new district. Therefore, I suggest to the Secretary of State that there is no justification, on purely democratic grounds, for endeavouring to merge this area with the Glasgow City District. If his proposals are accepted this area will have six and one-third members representing the whole area. If

Drumchapel is introduced it will have three to four members representing the area. If my proposal were accepted we would have a situation where, without Drumchapel, we would have 20 elected members and with Drumchapel 29 to 32 elected members.
In conclusion, I emphasise that every service required of a district authority—and many more—are now built into and well developed in the proposed Kilpatrick District independent of the Glasgow City area. The Government still have the opportunity, either here or in another place, to recognise and accept the validity of the argument that has been put forward. If they do not accept it, I am afraid that the community to which I have referred will condemn them out of hand for destroying local government democracy in their area, and certainly, in seeking to represent the communities both here and in local government, they will feel the draught when it comes to the polls.

Mr. John Smith: I shall be brief, because I realise that persuasiveness at this hour is directly related to brevity.
I need not say much in addition to the comprehensive argument that has been put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. McCartney) for a Kilpatricks district.
The Secretary of State could not have been thinking when he said that a Kilpatricks district could not be viable. Leaving Drumchapel out and confining it only to Milngavie, Bearsden and Clydebank, it has a population of 85,000 and a rateable valuation of over £5 million. If that does not create a viable unit for district authority purposes I do not know what does. The Secretary of State should look at his own constituency to see the size of some of the districts there and the resources which are thought sufficient to make them viable in that connection.
The whole argument about the size of the Glasgow District has not been confined to Bearsden, Milngavie and Clydebank. Other areas, including Bishopbriggs, were involved. I regret that my amendment was not selected by Mr. Speaker. I must accept that decision. However, I suggest that the House and the Committee have made a grave mistake by including these contiguous areas within the City of Glasgow District area.
The basic and fundamental mistake made by the Government and the Committee was to confuse the functions of regions with the functions of districts. While there is an excuse for bringing the contiguous areas around Glasgow into Glasgow for the purpose of regional government, either as an all-purpose authority or as part of the regional set up with the city of Glasgow at the centre, a different set of criteria ought to be applied for the district functions that are set out for local government.
I do not think that much of a case has been made against that view. Every time this matter is argued the Government say that it is so many miles from the centre of this or that place to the centre of Glasgow, that one does not know when one is passing from this or that place into Glasgow. The same is true of Paisley. One does not know when one is leaving Paisley and entering Glasgow, but Paisley has not been brought into the Glasgow Region. In my constituency, one does not know when one is leaving Stepps and going into Glasgow. That, too, on this basis should have been included in the Glasgow District.
There has not been a scientific approach to this matter, and I view with scepticism the fact that since the conclusion of the Committee proceedings the Secretary of State and the Scottish Office have been scratching their heads to try to find some solution to this prob-

lem. There has been no sign of contact with local authorites to try to find another way of solving the problem.

The House ought to take this opportunity to adhere to the decision of the Committee. If the House does that, I hope that the Government will go on and consider Rutherglen, Bishopbriggs, Eastwood, and other areas contiguous to Glasgow which have spoken about their desire to form districts of their own. I remind the Government of the views of a former Minister of State, Lord Hughes, who said during the debate in the other place that the Glasgow District as proposed was far too big and that these burghs ought to be allowed to form other districts.

I wish that when we think about local government reform we would sometimes take into account what the people want. The Government's thinking is pervaded by the attitude of what is the best way to plan things for the people. These and other burghs have gone to enormous trouble to put forward clear and lucid arguments, and we have been favoured with a good publication from the burghs involved in the Kilpatricks district setting out rationally and clearly their answers to the Government's case. That is what the people want. It makes sense, and we ought to take action now to do what they want.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 71, Noes 13.

Division No. 162.]
AYES
[2.57 a.m.


Atkins, Humphrey
Green, Alan
Money, Ernle


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Monro, Hector


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Montgomery, Fergus


Benyon, W.
Haselhurst, Alan
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)


Biffen, John
Hawkins, Paul
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.


Bowden, Andrew
Hornby, Richard
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Braine, Sir Bernard
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)


Brewis, John
Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Percival, Ian


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Raison, Timothy


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
James, David
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Jopling, Michael
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Kershaw, Anthony
Shersby, Michael


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Simeons, Charles


Buck, Antony
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Speed, Keith


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Knox, David
Sproat, Iain


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sutcliffe, John


Carmichael, Neil
Mackintosh, John P.
Tebbit, Norman


Chapman, Sydney
McLaren, Martin
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Clegg, Walter
Maddan, Martin
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Crouch, David
Madel, David
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Mather, Carol
Younger, Hn. George


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Mawby, Ray



Fortescue, Tim
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fox, Marcus
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C.(Aberdeenshire, W)
Mr. K. Clarke and Mr. H. Gray.


Gower, Raymond
Moate, Roger





NOES


Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Lambie, David
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Doig, Peter
McCartney, Hugh



Eadie, Alex
Machin, George
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Oswald, Thomas
Mr. H. Ewing and Mr. J. Smith.


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Sillars, James



Hunter, Adam
Steel, David

Question accordingly agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 37, in page 149, leave out lines 40 and 41 and insert:
'the electoral division of Kilsyth West; the polling district of Kilsyth East (Banton)'.—[Mr. Gordon Campbell.]

'Cunninghame:
In the county of Ayr—the burghs of Ardrossan, Irvine, Kilwinning, Largs, Saltcoats, Stevenson; the districts of Irvine, Kilbirnie, West Kilbride; those parts of the designated area of Irvine New Town within the Ayr and Kilmarnock districts.


5

In the county of Bute—the burgh of Millport; the districts of Arran, Cumbrae.


10
Kilmarnock and Loudoun:
In the county of Ayr—the burghs of Darvel, Galston, Kilmarnock, Newmilns and Greenholm, Stewarton; the district of Kilmarnock (except that part of the designated area of Irvine New Town within this district).



Kyle and Carrick:
In the county of Ayr—the burghs of Ayr, Girvan, Maybole, Prestwick, Troon; the district of Ayr (except that part of the designated area of Irvine New Town within this district), Girvan, Maybole.


15
Cumnock and Doon Valley:
In the county of Ayr—the burgh of Cumnock and Holmhead; the districts of Cumnock, Dalmellington.'.

The Government amendment divides Ayrshire into four districts as proposed in Committee by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars). My hon. Friend, the Under-Secretary undertook during the Committee debate to look further into the precise boundaries then proposed.

Our further examination of the position has revealed that while the boundaries proposed in the amendment create certain anomalies, particularly in relation to South Ayrshire in that some areas, including parts of Coylton and Dalrymple, which have a close community of interest with Ayr are included in the district centring in Cumnock, there are no completely satisfactory alternative administrative boundaries which can be used. The Government, in putting forward this four-district structure as acceptable in the circumstances, intend to refer the matter to the Boundary Commission, when it is set up, to recommend definitive boundaries.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) has put down amendments to the Government's amendment to transfer from the Kyle and Carrick district to the Cunninghame district the burgh of Troon and the adjoining landward

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I beg to move Amendment No. 39, in page 150, line 33, leave out from beginning to end of line 51 and insert:

area of Dundonald. Troon's connections are however quite clearly with Ayr rather than with Irvine. Troon Town Council indicated, following the publication of the Government's White Paper, that they were content to be in the district centring on Ayr.

I commend the amendment, which carries out what we undertook in Committee.

Mr. David Lambie: I beg to move, as an amendment to the Government's proposed amendment, (a), in line 2, after 'Stevenson', insert 'Troon'.
I have also tabled the following amendments:

(b), in line 4, at end insert:
'that part of the parish of Dundonald within the district of Ayr'.
(c), in line 12, leave out 'Troon'.
(d) in line 13, after 'district', insert:
'and that part of the parish of Dundonald within this district'.

I am surprised to hear the Secretary of State for Scotland state that Troon looks more towards Ayr than towards Irvine. I should like to prove that the Secretary of State is wrong in that assumption. After the Secretary of State


has heard my case for the amendment, I hope that he will reconsider his view and take the opportunity in another place to rectify this wrong.
The aim of the amendment is to remove Dundonald parish including the small burgh of Troon, from the new district of Kyle and Carrick to the district of Cunninghame. The Secretary of State has said that the people of Troon do not want to be withdrawn from their connections with Ayr. He has instanced the policy of Troon Town Council. When this policy was made Troon Town Council was equally divided. The people within the burgh of Troon and within the greater area of the parish of Dundonald who have made representations to me look more towards Irvine, especially the new Irvine, than they do towards Ayr and the old Ayr.
Dundonald parish, including Troon burgh, has been part of the parliamentary constituency of Central Ayrshire since its inception in 1951. With the connection with Central Ayrshire, people look more towards the centre of Central Ayrshire, the burgh of Irvine, than they do towards the county town of Ayr. Therefore, in a parliamentary sense, the parish of Dundonald, including Troon, is part of Central Ayrshire and not part of the parliamentary constituency of Ayr.
There is also a physical boundary between the parish of Dundonald and the burghs of Ayr and Prestwick, and that is part of Prestwick Airport and the associated green belt. The airport lies between the burghs of Troon and Prestwick and because of its position there is a green belt, an area that is zoned for no development. This means that if Troon is to develop, it must develop towards the north and the east. It cannot develop towards the south. It is because of this physical barrier of the green belt associated with Prestwick Airport that all the development in Troon and the parish of Dundonald has been directed towards Irvine and not towards Ayr.
The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office, the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), knows that this is correct. One could not expect his right hon. Friend to know that because he comes from the Highlands. But the Under-Secretary is his right-hand man and lives in the area. There-

fore, I cannot accept the present argument of the Secretary of State.
The northern boundary of Dundonald adjoins the designated area of Irvine new town. The parish of Dundonald has been integrated into the planning and direction associated with the setting up of Irvine new town. About one-fifth of the parish is within the designated area of Irvine new town. This makes nonsense of the Secretary of State's statement that the whole outlook of Troon is towards Ayr. The southern fifth of the parish of Dundonald is within the green belt associated with Prestwick airport.
3.15 a.m.
The parish of Dundonald has always been closely linked with the parishes of Irvine and Dreghorn to the north. At one time the main educational centre for the whole parish was the church school at Dundonald. With the development of the burgh of Troon, educational facilities gradually moved towards the new centre of Troon.
The build up of the new town of Irvine means that in future, with the increase in population, the educational centre must move again nearer to the Dundonald-Dreghorn area and not, as the Secretary of State has suggested, towards the area of Prestwick and Ayr.
As regards education, Dundonald and Troon have a greater connection with the designated area of Irvine new town than with the educational areas of Prestwick and Ayr.
For a long time the main centre of industrial expansion in the parish of Dundonald was geared to the utilisation of the harbour at Troon. Lately there has been a gradual cutback in industry in the Troon area. Not long ago the railway workshops at Barassie were closed. The only major industrial activity in the area is at Ailsa shipyard.
We have seen a movement of industry towards the Irvine area. We have new firms coming to the parish of Dundonald and the area associated with it—Monsanto Textiles, the Swedish firm of Skefco, the new development of Beechams. The Irvine Development Corporation is building a new industrial estate at Meadowhead which will merge with the well-established industrial estate of Irvine.
Thus industry is moving towards the Irvine area and not towards Prestwick or Ayr. The movement of people looking for work is also towards Irvine new town.
Because of the tremendous build up of industry in Troon, which we shall see in future to a greater extent, we have seen a corresponding build up of housing. There can be no housing in the southern part because of the green belt associated with Prestwick Airport. The only development can be to the north. As the hon. Member for Ayr knows, we have had tremendous housing development, especially private housing development, in the area of Barassie to the northern part of Troon.
In 1965 the Scottish Development Department asked the Scottish Special Housing Association to build 176 houses at Dundonald, not for the people of Dundonald but to house incoming workers for the Irvine new town area. Even the Scottish Development Department recognised that Dundonald would be a residential area for people coming into Irvine area looking for work. Housing development associated with industrial development has been concentrated in the area from Barassie through Loans to Dundonald, in the area occupied by about three-fifths of the parish of Dundonald.
On the industrial and housing fronts the whole trend of the parish of Dundonald is now looking northwards and towards the designated area of Irvine new town. Because of the build up of industry and housing there has been a tremendous build up of community services in the area associated with Irvine new town. In addition the parish of Dundonald in its association with the Ayr district council has a direct representation on the various committees associated with Irvine new town. Elected representatives from Dundonald sit on various committees associated with the new town—with the new town consultative committee, with the recreation and leisure needs committee and with the housing and community development committee.
The Secretary of State has recognised that, as Dundonald has allowed Ayr district council to make a financial contribution to its committees which are solely associated with the development of the new town, the parish of Dundonald's

future lies not with Prestwick or Ayr but with the development of Irvine new town.
I think that I have proved conclusively that the community of interest to which the Secretary of State has referred of Dundonald and Troon lie towards the new town. It has taken us about 45 years to change the system of local government. It was introduced in 1929. We are hoping to change it next year. Within 10 years the population of the urban area will be well over 100,000 and Irvine will dominate the parish of Dundonald. Therefore I urge the Secretary of State not to give an answer now but to look at the arguments and to take the opportunity in another place to support what our amendment proposes.

Mr. Sillars: I have taken a consistent view about the need for more districts in Ayrshire and I am particularly pleased to welcome the amendment, which is similar to one we tabled in Committee. It will be welcomed by the three authorities in the Cumnock and Doon Valley. I am satisfied with the idea of referring to the independent Boundary Commission the definition of the final boundaries between the landward and the coastal districts in Southern Ayrshire. I am sure that the Boundary Commission will be able to find a definition which leaves Coylton and Dalrymple within the Cumnock and Doon Valley district

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: It may be that in the 12 hours of discussion we have had on Report I have missed some significant statement by the Government. May I press for more information on the time-scale of matters that will be referred to the Boundary Commission? Is it hoped to have a report back in one year, two years, four years or how long? I do not think many matters will be referred to it which are of major significance. It would be helpful to local interests to have an assurance from the Secretary of State that when something is referred to the Commission they will be given a rough idea of the timescale. I do not expect a precise answer about what will be minor matters.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: We intend to refer a matter such at that to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred to the Boundary Commission as soon as it is


set up. The commission would then have to decide how quickly it could deal with the problems. I hope that some of them can be dealt with straight away and that it can provide an answer quite soon. I am thinking of it being able to produce an answer within, say one year rather than five.

Mr. Ross: I want to express my appreciation of the Government's carrying out their pledge that in principle they supported the division into four districts. I hope that some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) will be dealt with by the Boundary Commission.
I had quite an interest in the point raised by my hon. Friend, because the first parliamentary seat I contested was Ayr Burghs. Some people still refer to Ayr Burghs, but there is no Ayr Burghs. It was then the Burghs and only the Burghs, which leapfrogged over the landward area, starting at Ardrossan, Salt-coats, Irvine, Troon, Prestwick and Ayr. In my original Kilmarnock constituency I also took in virtually the parish of Dundonald.
It is interesting that when parliamentary changes were made by the Boundary Commission in 1950 it linked Irvine with Troon, and linked Dundonald with them. The Government must then take note of the long connection between Irvine and Troon, which will become closer in relation to the future of the Irvine new town.
We have a new town that has just started to grow. The Government can make their own calculations about its eventual size. I think that we shall eventually have well over 500,000, which is far too big for one district, in the area of North Ayrshire, as it originally was. The dominance of Irvine will be felt most in the surrounding area.
What my hon. Friend said is true. I can well remember the private housing developments being put forward round about Auchens Dundonald, to suit the Monsanto works, and there was another firm there—Skefco. Skefco clearly is in the new town area. If I remember rightly, the boundary is the railway line. The other firm is on the other side, but is considered to be within the new town industrial area. That being so, I hope

that the Government will not close their eyes to the importance of the matter, not only for the present but for the future.
We are fixing these local government districts for a long time ahead. My hon. Friend is looking beyond politics, because many people consider that Troon is a dieheard Tory area. I do not think that very many people go from Troon to Ayr. They may go from Troon to Prestwick Airport. It will be found that many go into the northern area and to the Barassie workshops. The indications were that the developments just north of Troon represented the best hope of getting future developments. I hope sincerely that the Government will not turn down out of hand the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire and that they will consider it with some favour. I hope that they will think not just in terms of the present situation but the future.
There will be some considerable events in Troon at some time during July. I hope that those who did not quite make it in a certain championship in the United States will be trying for better luck in the British Open.
My main hope is that the Government, for all that they have done in respect of the four districts, will not close their mind to some realignment, along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend, of the future boundaries.

Amendment to the proposed amendment negatived.

Proposed amendment agreed to.

3.30 a.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I beg to move Amendment No. 42, in page 151, line 36, at end insert:
'3. In this Schedule references to existing polling districts shall mean those districts as bounded as at 16 May 1973.'.
This is a technical amendment which is a necessary consequential on the use of polling districts in relation to the new boundaries at Auchtertool and Banknock. The alteration of polling district boundaries is affected by sheriff's deliverance, under the Representation of the People Act 1949, and does not require procedure similar to that involved in present local government boundary changes. As it is not inconceivable that further changes in those polling districts may take place before 1975 it is necessary to relate the


new boundaries to the present polling districts.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Robert Hughes: I beg to move Amendment No. 325, in page 3, line 3, after 'practicable', insert:
'but not more than three months from the date of the vacancy'.
It seems perfectly reasonable that any casual vacancy in the office of chairman should not last longer than three months. That is a reasonable amendment and I await the Government's views with interest.

Mr. Younger: The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that no more than three months can elapse between the time that a casual vacancy in the office of chairman occurs and the holding of a meeting to elect a new chairman.
It seems that the amendment is not strictly necessary because the words "as soon as practicable" should be an adequate safeguard against a council leaving the chairman's office vacant for an unduly long period, which it is not in their interest to do in any event. I should have thought that that was perfectly reasonable safeguard to put in.
Although three months seems a considerable time, it is not at all impossible that in the normal arrangement of running a local authority it will be found, with the best will in the world, that the necessary meeting cannot be held in that time.
There might be some illness, there might be a holiday period, there might be elections intervening. All sort of problems could arise. I think that three months will be adequate in normal circumstances but if we wrote in a specific period it could make things awkward in a small number of cases. I believe that "as soon as practicable" covers the point. I trust that with the assurance I have given the hon. Member will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for that reply. It seems that a period longer than three months would be unusual and undesirable. I hope that the Government will reconsider

this because it may be necessary to insert some time limit in another place. In view of what has been said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 3, line 9, at end insert
'and the chairman of each regional or islands council shall be known as the convenor of that council'.
During the debate on clause 3 in Committee, a considerable amount of support was given from both sides to an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) which proposed that the tile of convenor should attach to the chairman of each regional council and islands area council. The local authority associations, at the time that they were consulted before the Bill was drafted, expressed no strong preference for any special title for the chairman of regions or islands areas; however, the strength of support for "convenor" in the Committee was such that there was no objection when the Secretary of State summed up in favour of it, and indicated that he would be prepared to consider putting forward an appropriate amendment at Report stage. I hope that the House will accept that this is a desirable amendment in view of the opinion expressed in Committee.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. David Steel: I beg to move Amendment No. 246, in page 3, line 9, at end insert:
'and the title of "Provost" shall attach to the chairman of any community council which is based on any existing burgh'.
Since it appears, from an earlier amendment, that the Government's flexibility increases in proportion to the number of earls that can be produced in support of an amendment let me say that a quick opinion poll among various dukes, marquesses and so on in my constituency—which abounds in large numbers with such persons—showed great support for this amendment.
This amendment was moved briefly, and I hope the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) will forgive me if I say not convincingly, in Committee, again in our absence. It was slightly misunderstood then because


although I cannot claim to have got the drafting right it was not intended that any community council which might be formed in any part of a burgh should be able to grab the title of provost for its chairman.
The wording was intended to be clearly to the effect that a community council based on an existing burgh could be a community council which conformed more or less to the boundaries of an existing borough. It is obvious that in some of the smaller burghs in Scotland there are natural areas for a community council. Reference has already been made to the traditions, such as the common ridings, in the Border areas. In these the provost plays a particular part, quite apart from his functions as chairman of the local authority, which is common throughout Scotland.
In these celebrations he has an historic rôle. It is important that community councils should be entitled, and that it should be recognised in statute, to have the tradition of provost continued. This point has been made with varying degrees of enthusiasm according to the traditions of different burghs. The Government will know that the burgh of Jedburgh in particular has felt strongly on this. It raises the question whether we should not in statute carry forward a title which appears, for example, in the Royal Charters of those burghs to whom such charters were granted.
This is a serious amendment and if it is not correctly drafted I believe that the Government should accept it in principle and be willing to alter the drafting in another place. I do not think it should receive the brush-off it received in Committee.

Mr. Younger: I am sorry that, in spite of the advanced nature of the hour, my flexibility, which I felt coming on earlier, seems momentarily to have departed from me.
We have considered carefully the suggestion that community councils should be able to call their chairmen provosts. We have considered it on previous occasions and have thought about it very carefully because this is a matter about which some people feel strongly. The reason for rejecting it can be fairly simply stated. At present the titles of provost or lord

provost are logically related as part of the Scottish administration of local government. A lord provost or a provost is the senior magistrate of his burgh, and although the lord provosts of the four counties of cities have in certain respects wider powers than provosts in other burghs, their rôles are on the whole similar. There will be little or no analogy between, say, the Lord Provosts of Dundee and Glasgow, on the one hand, and the chairmen of community councils in, say, Dumfries or Lanarkshire or anywhere else on the other. They have quite different rôles and functions.
To use for a community council chairman the title of provost might be regarded as confusing, in conjunction with the fact that lord provosts will still continue in the cities, and, indeed, there may be districts councils which decide for one reason or another to call their chairman provosts.
The general argument for using the term "provost" for a community council chairman is that the title may be continued to be associated with a prominent leader or the leading citizen in an existing burgh, but there is no guarantee that in any area a community council will be formed at reorganisation or at any specific time thereafter. Indeed, it is rather unlikely that on the date of reorganisation there will be any, for the reasons stated yesterday in response to the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh). It is probable that existing provostships will terminate at the end of the existing system in May 1975.
Any locally based successors to them will be able to continue to have this title, but there is no evidence to suggest that there is any public demand for the continuance except in areas such as those of which the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles spoke and which he knows much better than I do. The Convention of Royal Burghs at a meeting this year decisively rejected the suggestion that the term "provost" might be used to denote the position of chairman of a community council.
I feel, therefore, that I must ask the House not to accept the amendment, and to say it is not a good idea. It may well be that when community councils come into being their chairmen may wish to call themselves "provosts". This could happen in areas which have present burghs in them, or in areas which are


not coterminous with burghs. There will be no bar whatever to their doing so if they wish to do so or if the local people wish them to do so. But that is not something which should be laid down statutorily in the Bill.

Mr. Grimond: I agree that it is not the case that there is a public outcry about this, but it is an important and regrettable thing that burghs, in my own constituency, for instance, will never see a provost again, unless—did I understand the hon. Gentleman to say this?—a community council chairman calls himself one. Did I understand the hon. Gentleman to say the chairmen can call themselves what they like? Is that what he was saying? That they could use the title provost—or, probably, lord provost?

Mr. Younger: Nobody can stop the community council or, indeed, any other body, from calling its leader "provost". There are some non-statutory bodies now which have provosts who are chosen every year, I think. Nobody can stop them from doing that. What we are asked by the amendment to do is lay down in statute that they may do so. That is a very different thing for allowing community councils to decide to regard their leaders as provosts. There are non-statutory examples of this. What I am against is laying it down in the Bill that the chairmen of community councils will be provosts. This is a matter which we should leave to them, and not make part of the Bill. I hope that the House will not accept the amendment.

3.45 a.m.

Mr. David Steel: Did I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that some district councils might choose to call their chairmen "provosts"? If that is so, is there not real danger of confusion? If a district council may call its chairman "provost" and a community council may do so as well, that is more likely to lead to confusion than my proposal is.

Mr. Younger: I rather agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I hope I have made it clear that we are not in a position to prevent a body from calling its chairman what it wants. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) hopes that the new district of Perth may call its chairman "Lord Provost". That is up to the

council and not to me. We are not in a position to prevent it from happening. We have to live with it. We do not want to lay down in the Bill that any of these people should be called "provost" because that would not be appropriate.

Mr. Ross: The Government have made an amendment that the chairman of each region or island council should be known as "convenor". Whatever option may be open to the district or community councils, it is not open to the regions. The hon. Gentleman should take the same attitude towards the district councils. He should put down a title for their chairmen, and that title should not be "provost". Whatever else is doubtful, it is certain that the title of "provost" attaches to a burgh. The districts will not be burghs. If the hon. Gentleman cannot stop a district council from calling its chairman "provost", could he stop it calling him "lord provost"? I am sure he could not.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that there could be confusion in certain aspects. If he allows a district council to call its chairman "provost", it will be both confusing and misleading. I take the view that, just as "dean of guild" and "deacon convenor" and the rest are passing into history, so should "provost" from the statutory point of view.
I think there is more justification for a community council based on a burgh to have a provost. But one could not have a provost without bailies. Are we to have bailies as well in the community councils? We are deceiving ourselves if we think we can carry on the term "provost" into a community council. It is better to make a clean break. We should decide to call the chairman of the district council the "chairman". The same applies to community councils.
I do not see why there should not be a provost for a day. People are often given courtesy titles for a day. We could perhaps get round it that way.
We should not use in an administrative sense a title that is of considerable importance and dignity in the history of burghs. We should not degrade the title by using it in a general way that


has nothing to do with burghs or the administration of the town.
We know little about community councils, yet this title will be conferred as of right. It does not follow that there will be only one community council in, for example, Paisley Burgh. Very old burghs will be denied the opportunity of continuing to use the title. It is far better to make a clean break and, if necessary, create the provost for the day. I forbear to ask whether the chains of office will be handed over to the chairman of the community council.

Mr. David Steel: I know that the right hon. Gentleman is particularly sensitive about historical associations in Scotland. His case might not be met by a provost of the day because in the Border burghs when a common riding takes place the provost on behalf of the people of the town charges the standard bearer to carry the burgh flag on horseback round the boundaries of the town and to report back whether the boundaries have been encroached during the year. This is purely a ceremonial occasion, not of statutory origin. It has a value which cannot be replaced unless the ceremony is perfomed by the chairman of the community council. The regalia is important to burghs with a long history. Let us have efficiency, but why sweep away all the tradition?

Mr. Ross: I see the difficulty, but until I know how community councils will be formed and how the chairman will be selected and I do not know what is the answer.
I am concerned that an honoured title shall not be degraded. It has a place in Scottish history and has been in existence since before local government. I cannot support the amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 6

RETURNING OFFICERS

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 4, line 11, leave out 'section' and insert 'Act'.
The amendment makes provision for the appointment of deputy returning officers at the first ordinary elections in 1974. The only provision in the Bill for

the appointment of deputy returning officers is in Clause 6(2) which confers the power to appoint on returning officers "appointed under this section". Returning officers at the first ordinary election in 1974, however, will be appointed under the provisions of paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 2. The amendment ensures that these returning officers, as well as the returning officers who will be appointed subsequently under the provisions of Clause 6, will be empowered to appoint deputies.
It is particularly important that this power should be available for the first ordinary elections in 1974 since it is intended that the regional and district elections will be held on the same day and in the same polling stations and with the same presiding officers and clerks. In this situation it is expected that the regional returning officer will wish to appoint the district returning officer as his deputy and to delegate to him such of his duties as are necessary to enable a simultaneous poll to be held.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 7

CONDUCT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 45, in page 4, line 43, leave out
'such particulars of the candidate's qualifications for office'
and insert:
'particulars of the candidate's qualification for office under paragraphs (a) to (d) of section 29(1) of this Act, in such form'.
This amendment has been put down in response to a criticism by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) in Committee (Col. 1061) that subsection (4) of Clause 7 might be construed as empowering the Secretary of State, in rules, to alter or add to, the qualifications for membership of a local authority prescribed in Clause 29. The amendment makes it clear that, as in the existing rules, all that is to be prescribed is the form in which the particulars of a candidate's qualification is to be given in the nomination form.
I hope that this amendment meets the point put forward in Committee. It is in that spirit that I move it.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 8

DAY OF ORDINARY ELECTION

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 47, in page 5, line 15, leave out 'after 1974'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): With this amendment, it will be convenient to discuss Government Amendments Nos. 48 and 49.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: These amendments give effect to an undertaking given to the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) in Committee—Cols. 1097/8—that the Government would bring forward amendments at Report stage which would provide for the first ordinary elections to the new local authorities in 1974 to be held on the first Tuesday in May.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 2

ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Amendments made: No. 48, in page 151, line 40, leave out paragraph 1.

No. 49, in page 152, line 12, leave out 'elections mentioned in paragraph 1 above' and insert 'the first elections of councillors for the new local authorities'.—[Mr. Buchanan-Smith.]

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 50, in line 14, leave out 'by order designate' and insert 'direct'

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment, it will be convenient to discuss Government Amendments No. 183 and 184.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: These are drafting amendments.
The effect of Amendment No. 50 is to provide that instruments issued by the Secretary of State under paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 2 nominating the existing county and town councils which are to appoint the returning officers for the first elections are to take the form of directions and not orders. In the case of these instruments and of the instruments which are to be made under paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 2 prescribing the electoral areas for the first elections, it is desirable that the Secretary of State should be relieved of as much formality as possible since

these are instruments which will have to be issued quickly after the Bill receives the Royal Assent in order that there may be no delay in commencing the preparations for the first elections in 1974.
It was intended, therefore, that the instruments under both of these paragraphs should not be subject to the provisions of Clause 227 which provides that orders, rules and regulations under the Bill are to take the form of statutory instruments. In the Bill as introduced, an exception for orders under paragraph 3(1) was made in Clause 227 but to achieve this for paragraph 2 it was provided that the instruments were to be directions and not orders. A reference to paragraph 2 of Schedule 2, however, was inadvertently left in Clause 227. The amendment, therefore, puts the instruments to be issued under paragraph 2(1) and 3(1) on the same footing; they are to be directions and not orders and are not, therefore, to attract the provisions of Clause 227.
4.0 a.m.
Amendment No. 183 corrects an error in Clause 227 which, as it stands, provides that orders made under Clause 10 are to be excepted from the requirement of the clause that orders are to take the form of statutory instruments.
Amendment No. 184 deletes references to instruments to be made by the Secretary of State under the provisions of paragraphs 1, 2 and 3(1) of Schedule 2 as being exceptions to the provisions of Clause 227 which requires orders, rules and regulations under the Bill to take the form of statutory instruments.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 51, in page 152, line 14, at end insert:
'(2) In relation to any such election, if in any electoral division of a region there is a contested election of a regional councillor, any contested election of a district councillor for a ward within that division shall take place in the polling stations and with the presiding officers and clerks appointed for the election of the regional councillor'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss Government Amendment No. 52.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Amendment No. 51 provides that at the first ordinary


elections of regional and district councillors in 1974 the elections are to be held in the same polling stations and with the same presiding officers and clerks.
The Government's amendments involving the alteration of Clause 8 and the deletion of paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 will have the effect that the ordinary elections to all the new authorities in 1974 will take place on the first Tuesday in May. It will be practicable to hold the regional and district elections simultaneously only if the poll is held in the same polling stations and with the same presiding officers and clerks. Although in practice there would be no other way of proceeding, it is considered desirable that the Bill should direct the elections to be carried cut in this way in case objection is made to the procedure involved. In relation to the ordinary elections of existing county and district councillors, which are always held simultaneously, there is an existing similar provision in rule 52 of the Scottish Local Elections Rules in Schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 1949.
Amendment No. 52 provides that in relation to the first ordinary elections of regional and district councillors in 1974 the power to constitute polling districts, which, in relation to subsequent elections, will be exercised by the new councils, is to be exercised by the returning officer for the district council. Paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 2 to the Bill as reported provides for this power to be exercised separately by the regional and the district returning officer. This is a logical extension of the Government's Amendment No. 51 providing that the first ordinary elections of regional and district councillors in 1974 are to be held in the same polling stations and with the same presiding officers and clerks. Polling stations are situated in the polling place for the polling district and if the same polling stations are to be used for the first ordinary regional and district elections it is essential that the elections should be organised on the basis of the same polling districts. In practice it is expected that existing parliamentary polling districts will be used, but there may be a few cases where new polling districts have to be devised.

Mr. David Steel: At four o'clock in the morning I may be a little slow on the

uptake. Is it the Government's intention that the regional and district elections should invariably take place on the same day?

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: That will happen only in 1974. Afterwards they will be at two-yearly intervals.

Mr. Steel: I should have thought that was the one time when it was important to distinguish them. After all, experience south of the border this year tends to support that view. With new authorities surely it is wiser to have the elections separated by one or two weeks so that candidates offering themselves for the regions could do so for the districts later.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: This point was discussed in Committee. No particular exception was taken to the view that the elections should be held on the same day. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) wanted the situation clarified and it was the subject of an earlier amendment.
I hope that it will not give rise to confusion. In all landward districts in Scotland electors have been accustomed to county and district council elections taking place on the same day. Therefore, the people in that great area, although they may not be the majority, are not unaccustomed to this practice.
There is, of course, a balance of argument. We take the view, and it is supported by consultations with the local authority associations and others, that in the first instance these elections should take place on the same day.

Mr. Ross: This may prove to be rather important. Most local authority associations consulted by the hon. Gentleman would have no experience of this practice, because in the greater part of Scotland these elections are not held on the same day. That rules out all the cities, and in many of the rural areas there are a number of non-contested elections—if not for county councils, then for district councils.
I want to ask the hon. Gentleman a question to which he may not have the answer. This matter has been put to me by people with experience of this practice. I have been told that if dual elections are held in areas which have had no previous experience of them there is


a considerable jump in the number of spoiled papers because people have not been accustomed to the practice and do not readily and quickly understand it.
Bearing in mind the importance of this, I think we must ensure that people clearly understand the procedure. I should like the Government to keep their mind fairly free about this and get a little more information from people who have experience of this practice. Next year we have to introduce people to completely new concepts of local government and duplicate counties, and it may be that quite a string of names will go forward for election if we get the heightened interest in local government that we want to see.
Dealing with the problem may prove to be more difficult and more complex than we expect. The Government should be able to find out from those who have had experience of this whether there is a rise in the number of spoiled papers when district and county council elections are held on the same day. This will be a new feature for the burghs and cities, and I hope that the Government will not close their minds to the fact that there may be some difficulties. I have discussed this matter with county councillors since the Committee stage, because it is only after discussions there that people come forward with their own experiences and ideas.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the matter because it has been put to us in the Scottish Office that there is an increase in the number of spoiled papers in these circumstances. I have not been able to confirm that as a fact, but the right hon. Gentleman is right in saying there is a feeling that that is the case. I shall try to keep an open mind. We believe that we have struck the right balance.
For the benefit for hon. Members who were not on the Committee, perhaps I may tell the House that we had a conference on all these electoral matters with representatives of all the political parties in Scotland. I referred in detail in Committee to the things that we had discussed. One thing that emerged was that it was the general wish that these elections should be held on the same day. That was the wish of the political parties, which, after all, will be most directly involved.
Therefore, although I will keep an open mind on this—we may have to be careful about the instructions on completion of ballot papers that are issued in polling stations—and despite the view expressed by the political parties, I do not think that we are necessarily wrong in having these elections on the same day in the first instance.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 52, in page 15, line 24, leave out from 'exercisable' to end of line 25, and insert:

(a) in the case of an islands area, by the returning officer for that area appointed under this paragraph;
(b) in the case of a district and of that part of a region which constitutes that district, by the returning officer for the district appointed under this paragraph; and the same polling districts, so constituted, shall be used for the first elections of councillors for the council of the district and of the region which includes the district.'.—[Mr. Buchanan-Smith.]

Mr. Robert Hughes: I beg to move Amendment No. 53, in page 153, line 19, leave out from 'authority' to 'shall' in line 20 and insert:
'designated by the person designated as mentioned in paragraph 5(2) above'.
It seemed in Standing Committee that there was some confusion in the Bill as drafted as to precisely what standing orders would be used at the first meeting of a new council, which might include a number of former councils with different standing orders. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) suggested that the officer who called the first meeting of the new council should designate which standing orders should be used. This would avoid any argument.
The Under-Secretary undertook to look at this matter. I do not see any Government amendment on the subject, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be prepared to accept our amendment.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the person designated to convene the first meeting will be responsible for choosing what standing orders should apply. The proposal has the merit, therefore, of being entirely specific.
This is not a point of major importance. In Committee we thought it preferable that the joint committee, or, where


there was no joint committee, the Secretary of State, should be responsible for this decision, rather than one person. It seems to us preferable that this should be the decision of the elected representatives. In practice, there will not be a great deal of difference in the final effect, since the standing orders, so far as they affect the initial meetings, are unlikely to vary much from one authority to another.
In Committee, on behalf of the Opposition, the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) objected that he could not see the logic of leaving the choice of standing orders to the joint committee concerned when it had already chosen the designated officer. What we have had to bear in mind is that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility, although it is not all that likely, that the designated officer could come from one authority, while the standing orders of another might for some technical reason be preferable. Therefore, the logic is that the joint committee should do both things, and not leave this matter to the designated officer.
Therefore, after reflection, I do not think we would gain a great deal by accepting the amendment, and I prefer to leave the Bill as we had it in Standing Committee.

Mr. Robert Hughes: It certainly seems that the Under-Secretary is right, but I wonder why it was necessary to put the point in such an obtuse manner in the Bill, with all these references back. It might have been easier to say that the first meeting shall be convened by a certain date on the standing orders then decided. It is not a matter of great importance, and at the end of the day it will come out the same whatever we put in the Bill.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 3

AMENDMENT AND MODIFICATION OF ELECTION LAW

4.15 a.m.

Mr. Ross: I beg to move Amendment No. 54, in page 154, line 4, leave out paragraph 1.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it would be convenient to take Amendment No. 55, in page 154, leave out lines 6 to 8 and insert:
(b) in Scotland, regard shall be had to the boundaries of local authority areas;"; and in paragraph 4(2), before the definition of "county", there shall be inserted the following:
area" and "local authority" have the same meanings as in the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.".

Mr. Ross: This is a simple amendment and one on which the Government have been listening to what was said in Committee.
It is wrong that we should be restructuring local government and suddenly discover that we have, by a side blow, made changes in constituencies, and that before any boundary commission or anyone else has looked at them, if we stick by what was in the Bill:
no region or part thereof shall be included in a constituency which includes the whole or part of any other region".
It would mean that certain important constituencies would be affected. It is left to me to look after the interests of the Secretary of State.
There is also the constituency of Argyll. Part is in Strathclyde and part in Highland. There is the constituency of Moray and Nairn. We are putting Nairn in the Highland region and the other part in Grampian. I know that these people are loth to speak for themselves, and I felt it incumbent on me to do it for them. I do not know whether a great plot by the Secretary of State put this in and whether he was glad to be shot of Nairn or whether he had territorial claims on other people's constituencies to make up for what he lost there.
One thing we have discovered in the past on rules on boundary commission activities is that the Boundary Commission for Scotland had far more freedom to cross local government boundaries.
We have in Scotland the kind of thing we could not possibly get in England as the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) said, the unheard of and unthinkable thing of what is done by statute to limit the activities of the boundary commission.
I do not know whether the Government amendment meets all the points. I am prepared to be persuaded that it goes


some way because it has taken out the mandatory
region or part thereof shall be included in a constituency which includes the whole or part of any other region.
Now we are to have:
regard shall be had".
That is fair enough so long as we appreciate that "having regard" gives power to disregard regional boundaries.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming our amendment. We were persuaded by the arguments put forward on this point at Committee stage and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that in the amendment we are seeking to meet him on all these points.
The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that, taking account of the way things work out geographically, the Boundary Commission should have additional freedom of consideration when drawing up parliamentary boundaries. I hope shortly to move formally Amendment No. 55. The wording of that amendment gives the Commission the freedom for which the right hon. Gentleman asked. In those circumstances I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to accept the Government's amendment and withdraw his amendment.

Mr. David Steel: I, too, came across this paragraph in the small print, as it is. The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) is right. This appeared to be a consequential piece of legislation of some importance and outside the scope of the Bill when it first appeared. I have not been able to find the debate on this matter in the reports of the Committee proceedings—

Mr. MacArthur: It is at column 1140.

Mr. Steel: —but, hearing the concern of the right hon. Member, I have come to the opposite conclusion. While it may not be right in this Bill, there is a case, given the new nature of local authorities in Scotland, for making it mandatory that no parliamentary constituency should overlap a regional boundary. I foresee difficulties if that is not done.
The Under-Secretary may argue that under the Government's amendment it

would be open to the boundary commission to take that same view. It could. But bearing in mind some of the peculiar decisions of boundary commissions in the past, given the latitude that they have had, I concluded that although I was surprised to find this in the schedule, I agreed with it. In the light of experience in my part of the world, I should have thought it useful that the boundary commission should be quite clear that it was Parliament's hope that parliamentary constituencies should not overlap regional boundaries. So long as that is the emphasis that the Government put upon it, I would agree to the amendment. I do not strongly oppose the Bill.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Rather than the House being detained—I do not mean it in any derogatory sense—perhaps I should suggest to the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) that if he reads the Committee proceedings he will see the argument put forward then by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), with which I certainly have sympathy when we come to these relatively few regions in Scotland.
We are seeking better parity of representation. If all the other criteria to be taken into account are met, there are occasions when, as a general rule, it is clearly better that constituencies stick to the regional boundaries. But there may be cases where, in order to meet the other criteria which the boundary commission has to take into account, it would be better to do otherwise. That is why this flexibility in giving a greater degree of discretion should be of greater benefit. I was certainly persuaded on that in Committee.

Mr. Ross: It may be that my arguments between 10.30 a.m. and 1 p.m. tend to be much more persuasive and powerful than they are at 4.22 a.m. I am reasonably satisfied with what the Government propose. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 55, in page 154, leave out lines 6 to 8 and insert:
'(b) in Scotland, regard shall be had to the boundaries of local authority areas;"; and in paragraph 4(2), before the definition of


"county", there shall be inserted the following:
area" and "local authority" have the same meanings as in the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.".')—[Mr. Buchanan-Smith.]

Schedule 4

CONSTITUTION AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY COMMISSION FOR SCOTLAND

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 56, in page 158, line 44, leave out '(a)'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment it will be for the convenience of the House to discuss Amendment No. 57.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: These are minor amendments required to bring the arrangements for pensions for the staff of the boundary commission into line with similar arrangements for other bodies such as the Highlands and Islands Development Board or the Countryside Commission.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 57, in page 158, line 47, leave out '(b)' and insert:
'(5) The Commission may, with the approval of the Secretary of State,'—[Mr. Buchanan-Smith.]

Clause 17

COMMISSION'S REPORTS AND THEIR IMPLEMENTATION

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 58, in page 9, line 43, after make', insert:
'a report to him containing'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment it will be convenient for the House to discuss Amendment No. 59, in page 10, line 1, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
'(4) Where, following the submission of any report by the Commission under this section, the Secretary of State decides to make an order thereunder which abolishes or alters the boundaries of any local government area, he shall lay any such report before Parliament together with the order, and any statutory instrument containing such an order shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.'
and Amendment No. 61, in Clause 28, page 15, line 27, at end insert:

(4) The Boundary Commission shall make an annual report and the Secretary of State shall lay that report before Parliament'.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 are moved in response to the arguments put forward in Committee at the 26th sitting reported at columns 1278 to 1285, about the publication of the boundary commission's reports. The Government accept that it is right that Parliament should have the opportunity to see the commission's reports. The amendments ensure that when orders are laid before Parliament to implement the commission's recommendations on a local government boundary change the appropriate report is presented to Parliament at the same time.
We have also considered the case advanced by some hon. Members in Committee for the publication of annual reports, as proposed in Amendment No. 61. We think that this would not add much to what the Government's amendments will achieve. An annual report would inevitably tend to duplicate or summarise material and information contained more fully in reports on individual and comprehensive reviews, and the preparation of the annual report might tend to divert the commission's energy and attention away from its primary responsibilities. Clause 18 already makes extensive provision for the publicity of proposals formulated by the commission and ensures that information is made available to everyone interested.
Therefore, although I accept that Amendment No. 61 goes rather further than the Government amendments, I believe that the Government amendments secure a satisfactory balance between what it is practicable for the commission to do in publicising its work and giving the information which Members of Parliament find necessary and not overburdening the commission by requiring it to produce a mass of paper at times when it is not absolutely necessary that people should see it.

Mr. Ross: I assure the Under-Secretary that he is much more persuasive at 4.25 a.m. than the Secretary of State is at any time. On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends I am prepared to accept his amendments and assure him that I shall not press my amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 59, in page 10, line 1, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
(4) Where, following the submission of any report by the Commission under this section, the Secretary of State decides to make an order thereunder which abolishes or alters the boundaries of any local government area, he shall lay any such report before Parliament together with the order, and any statutory instrument containing such an order shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.—[Mr. Buchanan-Smith.]

Clause 23

CHANGE OF NAME OF REGION, ISLANDS AREA OR DISTRICT

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I beg to move Amendment No. 60, in page 12, line 6, leave out 'not less than two-thirds of the members thereon' and insert:
a majority of the whole number of the members of the council'.
The amendment seeks to alter the arrangements for changing the name of an authority by providing that, instead of a majority of two-thirds of the members present and voting, a majority of the whole membership of the authority is required to effect a change of name.
Hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee will remember that the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) raised this point in Committee—I refer hon. Members to column 1244 of the OFFICIAL REPORT—in a very practical and sensible way. He drew attention to a point which we had not fully appreciated. There was general agreement in Committee that the Bill as it stood requiring a majority only of two-thirds of the members present and voting could result in a change of name being made by a very small proportion of the members of the council. The mathematics of the hon. Gentleman were wholly persuasive to me.
In tabling the amendment we are simply adopting the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the requirement should be for an absolute majority of the members of the council.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 31

DISQUALIFICATIONS FOR NOMINATION, ELECTION AND HOLDING OFFICE AS MEMBER OF LOCAL AUTHORITY

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 64, in page 16, line 36, leave out 'or the Isle of Man' and insert:
'the Isle of Man or the Irish Republic'.
The amendment results from an undertaking I gave at the twenty-seventh sitting of the Committee to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) to consider whether it might be necessary to disqualify for election to the local authorities persons convicted of offences carrying a sentence of three months' imprisonment or longer in the Irish Republic as well as in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man. I accept that since citizens of the Irish Republic are qualified to stand for election a sentence imposed in the Irish Republic should also count towards disqualification.

Amendment agreed to.

4.30 a.m.

Mr. Grimond: I beg to move Amendment No. 248, in page 16, line 42, at end insert:
'but nothing in this section shall prevent members of the teaching profession from seeking election to any council, save that such councillors shall not serve on any education committee of a council. Councils shall have discretion, subject to approval by the Secretary of State, similarly to exempt any other category of employees from the effects of this section'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With it it will also he convenient to take Amendment No. 65, in page 17, line 24, at end insert:
'(5) The Secretary of State may from time to time, by order made by statutory instrument, direct that the disqualification imposed by subsection (1)(a) above shall not apply to any such class or description of officers or servants of local authorities, or of any local authority or class of local authority, as may be designated in the order'.

Mr. Grimond: The purpose of the amendment is to allow teachers to serve on the regional authorities which employ them. The reasons for the amendment are obvious and have been debated before. First, teachers tend to be able


people. Many of them tend to be public-spirited people who are much interested in their communities. It is certainly desirable that they should be interested in their communities. They can give good service to the community, and it is right that the electors should have the chance to choose them if they so desire.
They also tend to be more impartial on many tricky matters than many people who are eligible for election. On all sorts of questions concerned with contracts and so forth the teachers can introduce an element of impartiality which is certainly desirable. I am always surprised that people who may have a considerable conflict of interests in dealing with local authority matters are eligible to serve while teachers are not.
This matter was discussed in Committee, and, as I understand it from reading the report of the proceedings, the Under-Secretary indicated that his mind was not entirely closed on the matter. He said that he was anxious to broaden the class of people who were eligible to serve on regional authorities and, in general, he was not ill-disposed towards proposals of this nature. There were other proposals concerning other classes of person but I shall not touch on that.
The Minister said in talking of the objections to the proposal that teachers had an opportunity to serve on a different tier of authority from that which employed them. Of course, that opportunity does not arise in those authorities such as my own in which there is only one tier. Secondly, I do not think that should prevent them from giving service on the main new authority we are establishing, the regional authority.
The amendment precludes them from serving on education committees, and the Under-Secretary drew attention to this in Committee saying that this showed that my hon. Friends and I recognised that there could be a conflict of interest and that there were difficulties. We are not adamant about this. If the House thinks that they should be permitted to serve on education committees I should not strongly oppose that, but my reason for including this provision in the amendment is not only because of the conflict of interest that might arise, but because it is desirable to increase the lay influence in education

and I should be sorry to see education committees dominated by teachers to the exclusion of lay members.
The Under-Secretary said that there could be an all-party examination of this matter after 1975 after the new authorities came into being. The right place to consider this matter is in the Parliament either in Committee or in the House. The Under-Secretary is wrong in saying that by permitting candidates to offer themselves to the electors we might be doing the electors a disservice. It is up to the electors to decide whether the restrictions we place on teachers should preclude the teachers from attracting their votes. But many people elected to local government are in positions in which a conflict of interest can arise much more seriously than in the case of teachers.
Therefore, I do not find the hon. Gentleman's objections convincing. He said that he had an open mind on the matter. If that is so, and if the whole matter is to be discussed in two years on an unofficial basis, I do not see why it should not be discussed now.
I notice that occasionally in our deliberations there is a tendency to push decisions outside the House and sometimes not to give enough weight to the desires of our constituents as one of the overriding factors in arranging the new system of local government. In my constituency there is a fairly widespread desire that teachers should be given the opportunity of standing.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Our Amendment No. 65 would allow the Secretary of State from time to time to direct that the disqualifications should be removed for certain officers and servants of local authorities.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) has made a special plea for teachers, despite the proviso in his amendment that they should not serve on the education committee. He adds almost as an afterthought that other categories of employees should also be exempt. I resent the impression so often given, perhaps inadvertently, that teachers are a special class of people employed in local government, more able than others, and with a particular service that they can give to local government which other employees do not offer.

Mr. Grimond: The reason I confined my remarks to teachers was that the amendment deals with teachers. I should have been out of order if I had dealt with all sorts of other classes. That does not mean that I am against other classes. I said earlier that each hon. Member must move his own amendment. I do not oppose the Opposition's wider amendment, but if I had made a long speech on other classes the Chairman would have ruled me out of order.

Mr. Robert Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman has confirmed my point. He would have been in order in speaking about the other people to whom I am referring. It seems that he has not read his own amendment. The last sentence reads:
Councils shall have discretion subject to approval by the Secretary of State similarly to exempt any other category of employees from the effects of this section.
The amendment encompasses the idea that people other than teachers can be considered if the councils think fit.
There is an omission, whether deliberate or inadvertent, of the great worth of the many thousands of people who work in local government and have been debarred for years. That is why our amendment is much more important, because it does not have any distinction between teachers and other people.
Bus conductors, street sweepers, gardeners, people who work in the town clerk's department and in the city architect's department, and so on, deeply resent the way in which on every occasion disqualification is considered there is special pleading for teachers, who are always held up as being more worthy. I share that resentment.
Earlier today we heard special pleading on behalf of businessmen. Hon. Members on both sides held up their hands in horror at the idea that firms might be debarred from tendering for local authority contracts because shares in them were held by councillors or their relatives. It was suggested that my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) was being far too restrictive in his approach. Businessmen apparently are not corrupted by contracts which they or their firms might have with their local authorities. But it is thought that people employed in local government would pursue their own interests in

a much more vigorous way than businessmen do. I reject that suggestion. The only argument which we have had against the proposal that disqualification for a fair number of local authority employees should not apply is that there might be a conflict of interest and consequent difficulties. The conflict of interest point is easily covered by the fact that when wages and conditions came under discussion such employees would declare their interest in the same way as businessmen. That would put them on an equal footing.
Difficulties of administration were mentioned. The Under-Secretary of State for Development gave the example, in Committee, of the gardener who might not have the green fingers which he should have. It was said that such a person would not be able to be sacked by the director of parks because he was a councillor. That was one reason given for disqualifying gardeners. It was suggested that in that way the relationship between the chief officials and the ordinary council employee could become very difficult.
But there was never any difficulty expressed about the clerk of works or the city architect who may have difficulties with local building firms. A senior partner who might be on the council or who might serve on the housing committee would have no difficulty discussing, for example the class of work being done by his firm, the supplies being undertaken by his firm or the time at which the work of his firm would be completed.
I do not cast any aspersions on Aberdeen Town Council. I should never do that. However, I doubt whether there is one building firm or building supplies firm of any size in Aberdeen which does not have a major partner on the town council. I do not think that the city architect has had any difficulties in discussing problems of contracts with such people not as councillors but as members of building firms. The idea that because people are bus conductors or street sweepers, for example, they have nothing to contribute to local authorities or that they cannot be trusted to take an impartial judgment is wide of the mark.
I find in Aberdeen, Glasgow and other places that often the most active discussions about local affairs take place in the trades councils. Members of trades councils are disbarred under the present law from taking part in local government


but they provide first-class views not just on the service in which they work or operate but over the whole range of local government. It is very important that we should accept that people who work in local government should be allowed to stand for the local council.
We are not suggesting that there should be a complete removal of disqualification. We accept that senior officials such as town clerks and their deputies should not be able to be elected. With the widening of local government so many more people will be disqualified. At least under the old system it was possible for people to work for one authority and to stand for another if they lived in a different authority from that where they worked. The opportunity to do so has narrowed because of the extended districts and the new regions.
If we are serious about bringing more people into local government we must accept that there is a vast reservoir of untapped talent which is available for use if only we will permit ourselves to use it. Amongst that talent are people who are enthusiastic about local government and wish to take part in local government.
I accept that when an amendment is drafted to take care of such a provision—I recite our experience in Committee and what the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) found to his cost earlier—and it specifically sets out grades of people who will not be disqualified, someone will always have a complaint that the provision goes too far or that it does not go far enough and that for that reason the amendment should be rejected.
4.45 a.m.
We cover the position in Amendment No. 65 by leaving it to the Secretary of State from time to time to decide this issue—not in the early hours of the morning, or under pressure in Committee but soberly, once the Bill has become law, through discussions with the local authority associations, the unions, such as NALGO, the General and Municipal Workers Union and the Transport and General Workers Union and others. In that way he could work out arrangements which would allow those who wished to take part in local government to do so.
I hope that the Secretary of State will be a bit more accommodating than he

was in Committee and that he will show one of his bouts of flexibility and accept our amendment, which protects the position and allows a great deal of merit to be imported into the Bill.

Mr. David Steel: The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) has made appallingly heavy weather of the point about the teaching profession. The point is that they are an easily identified group. At one point the hon. Member spoke of people in the town clerk's office. Practically, it would not be possible for, say, the shorthand-typist in the chief officer's office to be an elected member of that authority and, therefore, the employer of the person for whom she was working.
It is obviously difficult to cover in statute every category and that is why I believe that the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), which identifies the teaching profession as an obvious and definable group and goes on to say that this principle should be applied to others, is a more acceptable amendment. Amendment No. 65 seems to suffer from the defect that the initiative still rests with the Secertary of State, and no disqualifications may be raised, whereas Amendment No. 248 would at least make a specific provision for one easily identifiable category which could make a contribution to local government. That exemption made by Parliament would spur on others, as we agree we want it to.

Mr. Robert Hughes: There is deep resentment among local authority employees because the only people who can be co-opted on to the education committee are teachers. That exemption has not spurred anyone into making similar provisions for other people.

Mr. Younger: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) for giving us an opportunity to deal with this subject again. My position is as it was earlier. I recognise that there is a legitimate cause for concern here. We want to see that the law is brought up to date and that such disqualifications as there must be, and there must be some, are looked at in the context of electoral law. It must be looked at in the widest possible context,


rather than making changes now of a piecemeal nature.
The correct way to put this right is surely through the medium of all-party discussions on the disqualifications of employees. Then the subject can be looked at in the round, as part of the whole picture, so that we can help in the fairest way. There probably always will be some categories of disqualification and it would be capricious and wrong to take one aspect and change only that. I do not see much prospect of this all-party study being completed swiftly. It is to include the local authority associations. Pressure of work on the new local authorities and on associations connected with reorganisation itself has already built up to formidable proportions in England and is clearly going to in Scotland, too. I hope that on reflection hon. Gentlemen, with whose sentiments on this I very much sympathise, will agree that this is something we must see done properly in the proper context and not rushed through at the wrong time.
In Committee I undertook to raise the subject with the local authorities and other interested parties as soon as the immediate preoccupations with reorganisation are out of the way. I hope that any changes resulting from the proposed study will be capable of implementation—not, of course, in the first elections, but in the elections thereafter.
I also promised to try to get the current views of the local authority associations before this Report stage. I am afraid there has not been time for me to have formal consultation with them, but I have been able to obtain from them informally some provisional views. I emphasise they are provisional. To summarise these, the associations are in favour of Clause 31 as it now stands. They welcome the proposal for an all-party study, but they think that anything which emerges from it should be dealt with by primary legislation, and not by a subordinate order-making power. I must emphasise that these are not formal statements of the local authority associations' viewpoints because, as I said, there has not been time formally to get them, but they are comments which give a reasonably clear and fair picture. So far as they go they confirm what I stated in Committee, that they prefer the situation as it now is and will be in Clause 31.
So, I am thoroughly sympathetic to the general proposition that we must review the law and bring it up to date, but I do not think it should be rushed through or done in a half-baked manner in this Bill. I would urge the House to agree.

Mr. Mackintosh: The simplest thing would be to remove all disqualification. We have laboured in a Victorian manner about this, when the position is that on most local authorities in Scotland there are few people who do not have, in a very broad sense, a special interest—not a pecuniary interest—in the way local government works. They are people concerned with property companies, companies associated with various activities, including building. They are people who belong to the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers or to the Municipal and General Workers Union. They are not from the major industrial unions, but they are people whose day-to-day work is involved in civil affairs. We do not exclude all those people, but we treat professional people, particularly people whose employment is from the municipalities, as though they would somehow warp the proceedings to their benefit. It is a ludicrous idea.
They would constantly be under observation lest they should do that, and would have continually to prove, as it were, that they did not seek election for any such improper reason. There are some sections of them who have a lot to offer local government. Other countries—Germany, for example—which have some trouble in getting good candidates for local government, have gone to the length of letting in the local civil servants, who have proved very satisfactory candidates.
The simplest way is to trust the electorate and the members of the authorities to see that there is no corruption and no axes being ground. The simplest way is to remove disqualification.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I think there is some slight improvement in the Government's approach to this subject. I do not know whether it has been due to an intimation that we would be pressing it again now, but the Minister is now on record as saying that he is sympathetic and will press forward, whatever that


means. I appreciate that there are other matters with which he has to deal in the next year or so.
Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman has indicated that he genuinely on behalf of the Government wants to seek some change, but he shelters behind some informal provisional talks in which some unspecified people have told him that primary legislation is needed. That is no reason for not accepting the amendment, which is so widely drafted as not to rule out anyone doing anything, certainly in a specified time. The hon. Gentleman would be wise to accept the principle and then have his talks with the interested parties. That would be a more convincing demonstration that the Government truly believe in trying to eliminate at least some disqualifications.
I agree that the possibility of what I call the "civil service approach" should be examined. Of course there is a dilemma. We cannot blind ourselves to the fact that not all teachers are saints. Indeed, I sometimes think they are among the worst in wondering when the next promotion is coming. I think the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) is being a little naïve in suggesting that teachers necessarily bring a degree of impartiality which does not seem so commonly distributed among other people in local government.
But there should be a Civil Service approach whereby anyone interested could surely be given leave of absence or temporary secondment. We are dealing in some cases with big authorities which would not miss one or two top officials who might be inclined to enter local government as elected representatives. Why not make such provision? We would not be snowed under by applicants, certainly not with allowances as they are. Few people beyond the middle range of official would be attracted.
This kind of thinking needs to be done at least to bring in some people who could make a contribution to local government. I hope that the all-party discussions will be pursued and I think the amendment should be pressed, since it is a matter of principle. The public are suspicious of people in local government—over-suspicious in many regards. We have to assure them that people in local

government as far as possible are free from pressure or personal interest, which can take many forms. We are entitled to try to show the public that we are concerned to improve the standard of elected representatives, and one group which could be tapped is the local government employees. I do not understand the Government's opposition to Amendment No. 65, which could be perfectly well accepted if they really believed in the principle.

5.0 a.m.

Mr. Ross: I am disappointed by the Government's action. No doubt we have been too timorous about ruling out certain people from standing as candidates. I do not like the amendment. It should not be left to councils to decide who should or should not stand as a candidate.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) said that teachers are mentioned only because they are an easily defined group, but so are janitors, members of direct labour departments and many others. Parliament has to decide that question, whereas the amendment provides for councillors to decide it, and that is a considerable weakness.
At one time councils had a discretionary right to decide whether to co-opt teachers on to education committees. The education committee is the very committee on which teachers should not serve. Local education authorities will have no right to make up their minds whether teachers should be on the education committee because the Bill makes it mandatory. It is an unsatisfactory solution.
Amendment No. 65 does not bring in new categories. The Under-Secretary of State assured us that there would be all-party discussions. He said that he would have to wait until the new local authority associations were formed and the new councils elected. It will not be before 1976 or 1977 that the talks are started. What date has the Minister in mind?
The Minister said that he had some opinions, and he was careful to say that they were informal. How did he get those opinions? Did the local authorities consult all their constituent bodies, or did the opinions come from one or two officials of the associations? I am surprised that these informal opinions should


be of sufficient weight to be paraded before the House in support of the Government's attitude.
The Government have already made up their mind that they will need primary legislation after the discussions have taken place. It is not every day that the Government are able to get agreement to primary legislation. The Opposition are saying that if a decision were reached to widen the provisions there need be no delay because the power is already there.
I should have thought that the Government would jump at this and that, having had discussions, having come to a conclusion, and having determined to widen the exemptions, they would not feel it necessary to wait for a Bill to be introduced, to pass through the Scottish Standing Committee and to have its Report stage taken at an unearthly hour. Later today we shall relegate this important subject to second place in order to spend an hour and a half discussing some unimportant business relating to England and Wales. I have no doubt that the Tory Chief Whip and Secretary of State would again agree that the Scottish business might start at some time after 10 o'clock and that again we should find ourselves discussing these matters in the early hours of the morning.
It is not good enough, and no Minister will persuade me that any Department which really wants to do something quickly will accept the position that it will only be done on the basis of primary legislation when here there is an opportunity to take the power now.
To my mind, this is almost an earnest of the Government's intentions. I have the feeling that if a Committee came to the conclusion that there should be a certain widening, we should be told at Question Time after Question Time "We cannot tell you when legislation will be introduced, but it will be in due course", and then it would be relegated to the long legislative queue and we should wait years.
I am surprised that the Under-Secretary has not accepted Amendment No. 65. Certainly I should like to have this voted upon, but I do not want to see it voted upon with the House so dangerously sparse in its attendance. But I hope that the hon. Gentleman will think about it again. I do not want to ask my hon.

Friends to pursue the matter, but we could do so at considerable length. It might be better if we broke off our discussions at this point so that with a very much fuller House we might again embark upon what is a very important principle from the point of view of participation in politics.
I am afraid that more and more people will be cut out of being able to serve on local authorities. Bearing in mind the size of the Western Region, in the whole of that area no teacher will be able to stand, no matter how interested he is in social work, in aspects of education or in roads, planning and the rest of it, by virtue of the fact that he is a teacher. The same is true of firemen and anyone else employed by the regional authority. It applies equally to those who are themselves involved in social work. I know people employed in Glasgow's social work department who are county councillors in Ayr. I think of one very good councillor from my own constituency. By virtue of the extension of social work to this great wide area, he will no longer be able to serve in the broader capacity as he does at present. His experience in respect of education, planning and the rest will be lost. Is that fair?
I am surprised that the Government did not institute inquiries into this a long time ago. When we talk about all-party talks, we have a capacity for taking up a great deal of work. It may be that the Scottish Office has been slightly preoccupied with other matters. The Under-Secretary has been Mr. Industry, Mr. Europe and Mr. Committee Room 14 for a long time. Bearing in mind that the hon. Gentleman has got rid of his responsibility for industry to somebody in the DTI and his responsibility for Europe to somebody else and is dealing only with this matter, surely he could have spared some time to organise some of us to talk to him about this important aspect. I hope that the Minister will do more than he has done. We are glad that these talks are to take place. We hope that they will not be postponed to an indefinite date, but that was the feeling that I got from what he said about everybody being so busy.
We must get down to this matter. We ought to be able to make these exceptions in time for the elections which will take


place after the 1974 elections. It is a great pity that we cannot make them in time for the 1974 elections, but we should be able to arrange them for the elections thereafter. It is not outwith the bounds of possibility.
If the Under-Secretary does not accept Amendment No. 65, then, even though within a year we come to a decision about widening the categories of those who should be allowed to stand, he will not be able to put it into effect because he will not and is not likely to have the legislative power. Just think of what he has to do next year. My goodness, he has a whole list of things to do. He has to reform the whole feudal system. He has to introduce legislation to deal with the pledge that was given before the General Election—the great declaration of Perth. We heard something in the first Queen's Speech about proposals being brought forward. They will have to be brought forward at the latest in the next Session of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman and his Leader presented many other proposals to us. I see no hope at all, even though we may reach a conclusion about what we should do, of being able to get it done if we are to rest on primary legislation.
In Amendment No. 65 we are offering the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to do something. I wonder why the Government hesitate. I know it is late, but the hon. Gentleman has a chance. The Secretary of State is away, so we will rest upon him. He can make a name for himself. This can be yet known as the great Younger amendment—the day that he threw aside all the restraints of Whips, of Cabinets, and everything else and asserted himself in the cause of democracy in Scotland. Chuck them, George, and accept Amendment No. 65.

Mr. Grimond: I regret that the Government will not come a little further to meet us. Whatever differences there may be in the House, clearly hon. Members on both sides desire to make progress in this matter of widening the pool from which local councillors can be chosen.
I am fairly certain—I have not looked at the record—that when I raised this matter some time before the Bill went into Committee I was told by the Government that the proper time to consider

it was in the Bill. Now, when the Bill comes before the House on Report, I am told that the proper time to consider the matter is outside the Bill. This is a good opportunity for the Government to make progress on a matter that everybody wants to tackle in some way. Certainly I am open to a redrafting of the amendment. However, it is disappointing after all this time to be told that nothing can be done until 1975.

Mr. Ross: Will the Under-Secretary indicate whether he is prepared to look at the matter again? After all, the Bill has yet to go to another place. Surely his mind is not closed to the possibility of taking this power. He may not be in a position to do anything much about it now, but may I ask whether he is prepared to indicate that he will look at it?

Mr. Younger: I was so excited by the exciting prospects that the right hon. Gentleman drew for me that I thought I had better not commit myself in case I excited him too much on the other side.
I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman the undertakings for which he asked. I cannot give him any more detail than I have already given. I take it from what he said that he felt we ought to aim at getting the matter settled in time for the first lot of elections after those which are to take place in 1974. I hope that that might be possible, and I shall be glad to take that away as the view that has been expressed today and say that I hope to achieve that timetable. I can go that far towards meeting the right hon. Gentleman, but no further.

5.15 a.m.

Mr. Mackintosh: On a point of order, Sir Robert. It is clearly the wish of the House to consider the matter, and it is clear, too, that hon. Members are dissatisfied with what the Government are doing. In view of the collapsed state of two or three hon. Members on the Government benches—in fact they are totally moribund—would it be in order to move that the debate be adjourned until tomorrow, when some hon. Gentlemen opposite may be better able to consider the amendments?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It would be in order for the hon. Member to try to move such a motion, but I should not accept it.

Mr. David Steel: On a point of order, Sir Robert. Amendment No. 248 was selected for discussion and Division if requested. Amendment No. 65 was selected for discussion only. During the debate the latter has received wider support than the former. Would it be possible for the Division to take place on Amendment No. 65 instead of on Amendment No. 248?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) would like to withdraw his amendment, I should be prepared to consider allowing a Division on the next one.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 40

GENERAL NOTICES AND RECORDING OF DISCLOSURES FOR PURPOSES OF SECTION 38

Amendment made: No. 66, in page 21, line 26, leave out 'member' and insert 'local government elector for the area'.—[Mr. Younger.]

Mr. Grimond: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, No. 65 in page 17, line 24, at end insert:
'(5) The Secretary of State may from time to time, by order made by statutory instrument, direct that the disqualification imposed by subsection (1)(a) above shall not apply to any such class or description of officers or servants of local authorities, or of any local authority or class of local authority, as may be designated in the order'.—[Mr. Robert Hughes.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 18, Noes 62.

Division No. 163.]
AYES
[5.17 a.m


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Proven)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Murray, Ronald King


Buchan, Norman
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Carmichael, Neil
McCartney, Hugh
Sillars, James


Eadie, Alex
Machin, George
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Ewing, Marry
Mackenzie, Gregor
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Mackintosh, John P.
Mr. David Lambie and


Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Maclennan, Robert
Mr. David Steel.




NOES


Atkins, Humphrey
Haselhurst, Alan
Noble. Rt. Hn. Michael


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hawkins, Paul
Owen. Idris (Stockport, N.)


Benyon, W.
Hornby, Richard
Percival Ian


Biffen, John
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Raison, Timothy


Bowden, Andrew
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Braine, Sir Bernard
James, David
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Brewis, John
Jopling, Michael
Shersby, Michael


Brinton, Sir Tatton
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Simeons, Charles


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Knox, David
Speed, Keith


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Le Marchant, Spencer
Sproat, Iain


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
MacArthur, Ian
Sutcliffe, John


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
McLaren, Martin
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Calhcart)


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Maddan, Martin
Tebbit, Norman


Chapman, Sydney
Madel, David
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Mawby, Ray
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Clegg, Walter
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Crouch, David
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C.(Aberdeenshire, W)
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N R.


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Moate, Roger
Younger, Hn. George


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Money, Ernle



Fox, Marcus
Monro, Hector
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Green, Alan
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Mr. Tim Fortescue and Mr. Hamish Gray.


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Schedule 7

MEETINGS AND PROCEEDINGS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 68, in page 162, line 6, at end insert:
'except where the matter which is the subject of the vote relates to the appointment to any particular office or committee in which case the decision shall be by lot'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it would be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 82, in Clause 62, page 34, line 39, leave out subsection (2).

Mr. Younger: These amendments have been inserted at the request of the Association of County Councils. Although in normal circumstances the chairman for the time being of any meeting is to have a deliberative as well as a casting vote, it is better that he should not have a casting vote when what is under discussion is an appointment of some kind in the gift of the authority. It could be, for example, that the chairman might have to give a casting vote on whether he should himself be nominated or appointed to a particular office or job.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 69, in page 162, line 10, Schedule 7, leave out 'and entered in a book kept for that purpose'.
I accepted at the 28th sitting of the Committee an Amendment by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) to remove the requirement that local authorities should enter minutes in a book kept for that purpose. A promise was given to consider whether any change in the wording was needed to ensure that authorities did keep some record of their minutes.
On further examination it is clear that the requirements in Schedule 7 that the minutes shall be drawn up and signed, and the need to have them available for production under Clause 195, provide sufficient safeguard against any authority failing to keep the necessary records.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 45

ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCE AND FINANCIAL LOSS ALLOWANCE

Mr. Maclennan: I beg to move Amendment No. 332, in page 23, line 25 leave out 'who is a councillor'.
I move this with tentativeness because I do not fully understand the Government's intention in including these points but also because it seems to me that the remuneration of members of a local

authority should not vary in the way in which the clause, as I understand it, proposes that it should.
The purpose of the amendment is to provide that all members, however they become members, whether elected or otherwise, should be treated alike in their entitlement to attendance allowance.
The point made was that that was desirable, if members of local authorities were to be co-opted, and it was not entirely clear whether, under the definitions of the Bill, teachers and religious representatives on education committees would be regarded as co-opted members of the local authority. If they are, it is reasonable that they should be remunerated in the same way as those who have been elected.

Mr. Younger: I am grateful to the hon. Member for moving this amendment. There is a simple explanation. The attendance allowance is an emolument and thus subject to income tax. The Inland Revenue has, however, accepted that a councillor can be regarded as having two places of business, his home and the council chamber. This enables the councillor to receive, untaxed, travelling allowances in respect of his attendances without breach of the long-standing tax rule that journeys from one's home to one's place of business are not validly claimable against tax.
Non-elected members, however, do not have this duality of responsibility, and if they were paid an attendance allowance any travelling allowance would be taxable with the attendance allowance. This could mean that a co-opted member travelling from, say, Campbeltown to Glasgow or Skye to Inverness would have to pay tax on the amount paid to him by way of, say car mileage allowance, but if the co-opted member is entitled only to financial loss allowance, which is not taxed, he is not taxed on his travelling expenses. This is likely to be more beneficial, in financial terms, than to receive attendance allowance and travelling expenses and be taxed on both.

Mr. Maclennan: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for that explanation, which, I have no doubt, will put him in line for promotion to the Treasury. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 47

ALLOWANCES FOR ATTENDING CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS

5.30 a.m.

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 71, in page 24, line 27, at end insert:
'(c) any water development board within the meaning of the Water (Scotland) Act 1967;'.
This amendment repairs an omission in the Bill. As the Bill is presently drafted, the power which the existing water boards have under the Water (Scotland) Act 1967 to send members of the board to conferences and meetings has been repealed but the clause allows only those bodies which have power by virtue of any enactment to send representatives to a conference or a meeting to pay the expenses of such a member. All the other water boards are now, by virtue of the Bill, wound up and their functions transferred to the regional and islands authorities. But the central Scotland Water Development Board continues to exist. It is not the intention that the water development board or any other water development board which might be set up in the future should not be able to send members to conferences etc. and to pay their expenses. The amendment rectifies that omission. I hope that the House will accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 51

ESTABLISHMENT AND GENERAL PURPOSE OF COMMUNITY COUNCILS

Mr. Grimond: I beg to move Amendment No. 255, in page 27, line 15, leave out 'and to public authorities' and insert:
'to public authorities and to the Secretary of State for Scotland'.
The point of the amendment is to ascertain whether the right of the new community councils to approach not only the regional or the islands area councils but also the Secretary of State, the Scottish Office, public authorities and nationalised industries, and so on, is still safeguarded. The particular point in the amendment is the right to approach the Secretary of State for Scotland.
It may be said that clearly the community councils have such a right. The Secretary of State has already explained

that he will reply to a letter from anyone—although some replies take longer than others.
If it is unnecessary to specify when they have a right of approach, I should have thought that it was unnecessary to put into the Bill local authorities and public authorities. Presumably they are inserted for some purpose. If they were left out the community councils would suffer. If they are put in, it is important to know what is covered by "public authorities". There is a view that the Secretary of State is a public authority. I am not certain whether that is so.
I shall not take up much more time. I protest that the House is still sitting at this time in the morning on important Scottish business.
I shall be content if the Government say what is covered and assure me that community councils will have the right to approach not only district or regional councils but also the Scottish Office and public bodies.

Mr. Younger: I can give the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) the assurance that he seeks. It is a most reasonable request.
A community council's general purpose, as outlined in Clause 52, includes expressing to the local authorities for its area, and to public authorities, the views of the community which it represents, in relation to matters for which those authorities are responsible. This amendment would add the Secretary of State for Scotland to the list of those to whom representations may be made.
That wording gives an outline of what is expected to be one of the main activities of community councils; but to try to make it more precise by additions such as the one suggested would inevitably tend to harden what is intended as a general indication into a more rigid and formal classification, and to imply that anything not expressly included in Clause 52(1) was thereby to form no part of a community council's remit. For instance, if the Secretary of State for Scotland is to be brought into the clause, why not the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Secretary of State for the Environment or any other Minister? The danger would arise that a Minister not specified might be able to claim that


a community council could not make representations to him.
Community councils can and no doubt will make representations to the Secretary of State. That is the assurance that the right hon. Gentleman wished for, and I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Grimond: With that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 52

SCHEMES

Mr. Russell Johnston: I beg to move Amendment No. 254, in page 27, line 23, leave out 'establishment' and insert 'election'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we are to take Amendment No. 253, in page 27, line 38, leave out 'elections' and insert:
'method of election, duration of tenure of office of elected members'.

Mr. Johnston: I, too, will be brief, because the hour is not conducive to lengthy speeches, nor indeed to their enjoyment, as one can judge from a glance at the Public Gallery.
The object of the amendment is, first, to emphasise that community councils be elected bodies and, secondly, to give the Secretary of State a definitive rule for
method of election, duration of tenure of office of elected members".
The substitution of "election" for "establishment" in line 24 is self-evident.
The second amendment is more significant. According to Clause 52(2), the local authority has a responsibility for preparing and giving public notice of a draft scheme of the community council. However, this does not include the question of the method of election, the duration of tenure of office, or for that matter the length of time for which the community council may hold office.
The scheme for the community council set out in subsection (2) requires the Secretary of State's approval in accordance with subsections (5) and (6). Only after the Secretary of State has approved the scheme, according to the Bill as drafted, does the question arise as to whether it is proceeded with and, if so,

how it is proceeded with, and this is determined by the local authority itself according to subsection (7).
This is not a good system. It would be a bad thing. We all know the valuable work that village councils and village organisations do. They are wholly voluntary bodies. The danger with such voluntary bodies is that motivated people, to use the word which was bandied about between the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne), become involved and represent themselves as representing the community. This danger will exist if the Secretary of State does not involve himself directly in the method of election and indeed in the term for which the council may continue without having a further election.

Mr. Younger: I see the point that the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) is getting at, but I am not sure that I share his view that it is necessary to spell out in great detail the method of election, and so on, for a community council.
As to Amendment No. 254, "establishment" was chosen as a broad and comprehensive term to cover all aspects of the setting up of community councils in an area—not simply the elections, but the drafting of rules of procedure, delineation of areas, and any other action necessary.
If the hon. Gentleman is afraid that the use of the term might imply that a district or islands authority might try to meet its responsibility under the clause by, for example, setting up a "token" community body consisting of persons nominated by the authority instead of chosen locally, it should be emphasised that, since the whole idea of community council schemes is that there should be full public consultation at all stages, an attempt to circumvent the democratic process in this way would be unlikely to get very far.
Amendment No. 253 would require community council schemes to include details of electoral methods, and to specify the terms of office of elected members, rather than simply containing provisions on elections. This amendment, like others put forward by the hon. Members, would have the effect of


making the provisions relating to community councils more detailed and specific, and it is doubtful whether such increased precision is either necessary or desirable. In particular, to require district councils to lay down in schemes how long community council elected members are to hold office appears an unnecessary requirement. It could quite well be that a particular period of office would suit one community council but not another and that the period should therefore be specified not in the scheme but in the constitution of each of the councils concerned. There must be the maximum scope for flexibility, as the Wheatley Commission emphasised: and therefore the provisions to be written into schemes should be reduced to the minimum.

Mr. Johnston: I am all for flexibility but presumably schemes produced in community councils as set out in the Bill will vary from place to place and if the schemes vary the methods of election may vary also. I do not see why one should be excluded and the other included.

Mr. Younger: The hon. Member's amendment inserts the words
method of election, duration of tenure of office of elected members".
That would mean that the method of election for example would have to be spelt out in general in the scheme. That might be highly unsuitable in some of the community councils within the district and most suitable for others and it seems to be something not to be specified too clearly because we want to allow the maximum difference. It by no means follows that a member of a community council will be elected in the same way or even elected at all. Some of them would want to be nominated.

Mr. Johnston: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Carmichael: I beg to move Amendment No. 73, in page 28, line 18 after 'form', insert:
'together with public notice of such a scheme as it applies to each proposed area, by exhibition in that area'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this Amendment it will be convenient also to

discuss Amendment No. 74, in page 28, line 19, leave out:
'apply in writing to the local authority'
and insert:
'attend a public meeting, at which a prescribed number of electors, which shall be not less than 30 shall be asked to sign a resolution'.

Mr. Carmichael: We have put down these amendments because we feel it is not enough just to leave it vaguely specified as "form". There should be an effort made to let the people in an area know that a scheme has been drawn up and that a community council is about to be set up. Therefore, there should be provision for notices to be given in the area. Will the Under-Secretary tell us what is included in the term "form"? We should like there to be an exhibition, perhaps in post offices, or community centres and even special exhibitions devised for the purpose, particularly in the early days of community councils. The provisions would strengthen the clause.
Amendment No. 74 would provide that instead of requesting people to apply in writing for the setting up of a community council a meeting should be called and at least 30 people attending the meeting must sign a resolution. This would be a better idea that vaguely asking people to write in. It would mean that some one would have to organise people into groups whereas in the first instance, at least, the initiative should come from the district council which is setting up the community councils, or which is taking part in organising the first community councils. It should call a local meeting at which people should be given the opportunity to sign a resolution. That is much more positive than merely asking people to write in.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Younger: I am glad to say that I can accept Amendment No. 73, on which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Woodside (Mr. Carmichael) made some good points.
I am less happy about Amendment No. 74, which lays down a more complex procedure than that set out in the Bill. Under the amendment a "prescribed number" of electors—presumably, though this is not specified, to be laid down by the district council—would be required to hold a "public meeting", which is not otherwise defined, at which a petition to


the district council would be signed. One objection at least to this procedure is that the setting of a minimum number of electors, with no maximum, might make it possible for a district council to inhibit the formation of community councils in its area by setting what might be called the petition levels unreasonably high.
In addition, I think it unnecessary to spell out in statute details of this kind concerning the preparation of a petition. As hon. Members will be well aware, the preparation of a petition on a matter of general local concern, such as the formation of a community council, is something which local people are well capable of organising for themselves on a democratic basis, and I think it unnecessary to lay down the methods by which they should do this. In many cases, the petitioners will probably choose to hold a public meeting to establish the strength of local feeling; but sometimes—for example, in very remote rural areas—it may well be more convenient to circularise people by post rather than call them to a meeting over what may be long distances. It should be recognised that the mandatory holding of a meeting in the manner proposed could interfere with the freedom of local choice on which community councils must depend.
It is therefore better not to spell the matter out too clearly in the way suggested in the amendment. But I hope that it will be some consolation to the hon. Gentleman that I can accept Amendment No. 73.

Mr. Carmichael: It is obviously a consolation, but I ask the Minister to reconsider Amendment No. 74. He said that we are stipulating a set number of electors—not fewer than 30—but the Bill itself contains the words in subsection (7):
Where not less than 30 electors apply".
So far as I am aware, this is the first time in our discussions on community councils that the question of circularising people by post has arisen. When the Minister speaks of the possibility of circularising people in a remote area by post, is he thinking of circularising all electors in the area?
If the matter had come up at a more opportune hour I should have gone into it much more fully. I do not think that

the hon. Gentleman's statements on Amendment No. 74 quite match up with some of his statements in Committee.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 54

DEFAULT POWERS OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE UNDER PART IV

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 75 in page 29, line 16, after 'elections'. insert 'or other voting arrangements'.
This amendment is a necessary consequential of an amendment to Clause 52, moved by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown), which was accepted by the Government in Committee. As originally drafted, Clause 52 provided that a local authority, on application by the requisite number of local electors, should be obliged within a certain time to organise elections for the purpose of establishing a community council. It was agreed that the reference and elections should be broadened by including the phrase "or other voting arrangement". No similar amendment was proposed to Clause 54, which envisages similar action by the Secretary of State where a local authority fails to prepare a community council scheme. It is clear that the procedure should be the same in both cases and the amendment rectifies the omission.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Younger: I beg to move Amendment No. 76, in page 29, line 25, leave out public 'and insert local'.
This amendment is identical to a number of amendments accepted by the Committee so as to make consistent reference throughout the Bill to local inquiries instead of public inquiries.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 56

ARRANGEMENTS FOR DISCHARGE OF FUNCTIONS BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Mr. Mackintosh: I beg to move Amendment No. 77, in page 30, line 6, after 'by', insert 'a designated elected councillor'.

Mr. Mackintosh: It is far too early in the morning to raise a large issue about


the structure of local government. I shall explain the amendment and let it go at that. At page 30, Clause 56, the Bill says:
a local authority may arrange for the discharge of any of their functions…".
That can be done in four ways: first, by a committee of the authority; second, by a sub-committee; third, by an officer of the authority; and, fourthly, by any other local authority in Scotland
.
In the thinking which has been going on about the reorganisation and internal structure of the new local authorities one of the possible methods which has been held open by the various reports has been what is called the Cabinet system, by which a convener or chairman, who would normally run a committee, acts himself on behalf of the local authority.
At paragraphs 956 and 959 the Wheatley Report says that it refrains from making any pronouncement as to which is the best system. It merely sets out the four different schemes. The Wheatley Report commented on the scheme put forward in the Maud Report. That is not the report on English local government but the one on management of local government which appeared in 1966.
The Maud Report said that committees should cease to be executive or administrative bodies save for some exceptional purpose, that their main function should be deliberative, that there should be as few committees as possible, perhaps not even half a dozen, and that the work of the major authorities should be conducted by a planning committee composed of five to nine committees of those major authorities.
That was an attempt to policise local authorities to put matters into the hands of elected councillors—for example, one in charge of health, one in charge of education, one in charge of rates and one in charge of sewage. In that way there would be, in effect, a Cabinet of senior elected members, each responsible as a Minister is responsible for running his Department.
I do not necessarily wish to impose the adoption of this scheme upon local authorities. The amendment leaves the possibility open. The functions of a local authority should either be conducted by itself or through a senior official. I wanted to keep that other possibility open.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office (Mr. Hector Monro): Over many years chairmen and vice-chairmen have been given authority by committees during holiday periods and so on to discharge certain functions. That can continue under Clause 56 in that any committee can authorise a sub-committee of its own election to do so. The amendment is unnecessary.

Mr. Mackintosh: In view of what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The next amendment is Amendment No. 79—

Mr. Ross: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that this would be a suitable time at which we could adjourn. From what I was led to understand we have reached the point agreed with the government. I think it is important that we keep our deliberations within reason.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: That is my understanding. I also heard that the next two Government amendments might have been taken. This is the moment at which we had roughly agreed we would come to an end.
Further consideration of the Bill, as amended, adjourned.—[Mr. Gordon Campbell.]

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered this day.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr Jopling.]

Orders of the Day — VEHICLES FROM OVERSEAS (INSURANCE)

5.55 a.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: The clasic reason for the Adjournment debate is the redress of grievances. I am pleased, at this early hour, to raise a grievance which originated with one of my constituents, Mr. R. L. Cryer, but which raises a number of questions relevant to the whole country and in particular to


those who use the roads and are owners of motor vehicles.
My constituent was unfortunate enough to have an accident with a vehicle from abroad, a continental lorry which he claims ran into his vehicle while it was stationary. I have no reason to doubt that my constituent is correct. Having obtained from the driver of the lorry a copy of the particulars of his green card which showed the insurance arrangements, my constituent went about getting his car repaired and making alternative arrangements for his own transport.
In this case there were, happily, no personal injuries involved and therefore it was purely a matter of the costs of repairs to the car and certain costs which Mr. Cryer had to incur to keep himself mobile. When he came to try to recover costs from the insurance company responsible for the lorry he met with great difficulty. For some time he got no reply from the continental firm concerned. He sought the assistance first of the Home Secretary, who explained that as there was no question of personal injury, there was no direct reciprocal arrangement between Governments and that Mr. Cryer would have to whistle for his money or take the continental insurance company to court.
Naturally my constituent thought that in the days of international co-operation taking the matter to law would be an expensive matter. He was not satisfied that the arrangements made by the Government for such circumstances were adequate. He brought this matter to my attention and I followed it up. The Minister for Transport Industries referred me to a reply which he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) on 28th March 1973. The Minister said:
Claims against foreign nationals for personal injury damages arising out of road accidents in the United Kingdom are handled by the Motor Insurers' Bureau. Claims for property damage, liability for which is not compulsorily insurable, can be pursued in the English courts, and reciprocal arrangements for the enforcement of judgments exist in the case of several major Western European countries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th March, 1973; Vol. 853, c. 330–1.]
There was no reciprocal arrangement for making claims but there was for enforcing judgments. That exists only in

the case of certain major Western European countries and was not of use in this case.
This seems to be an unfortunate gap in our international arrangements because understand that many people are in difficulties, although the Government do not appear to believe that this is so. It is clear that anyone who has a claim against someone who bumps into him can have difficulty if the other driver comes from this country. He may, indeed, have to take him to the domestic courts. But the difficulty there is small compared with the difficulties in another country.
The Automobile Association does not agree with the present situation. While, of course, it admits that insurance against third party damage is not compulsory the AA says that
third parties concerned cannot be forced to disclose the identity of their insurers and the difficulties which obtain where the third party is a United Kingdom resident are, of course, magnified where he is a foreigner. What is required, in our view, is a change in the law making third party property damage compulsorily insurable. It appears that the Department of the Environment has no intention of promoting such legislation because it claims to be unaware of any significant number of cases where the loss has not been recoverable through the medium of civil proceedings. In our own experience there are many such cases. It is often found that it is a waste of time and money to commence proceedings against the third party if he is not being backed by insurers. Even if judgment is obtained it does not necessarily follow that satisfaction will be automatically achieved. One cannot have recourse to the Motor Insurers' Bureau as that body will only meet liability where the same is required to be covered by a policy of insurance by statute.
Therefore not only is there difficulty in domestic cases, but it is compounded very considerably in cases involving foreign vehicles.
My attention was drawn to the whole question of the ports. It appears that it may be possible for a vehicle to come into this country and for its documents not to be in order. I received a letter from the Minister for Transport Industries, who outlined to me the present situation for inspection at ports. Apparently, it is done only on a random check basis. Moreover, it is done not by a Government agency but by the motoring organisations themselves. I will not question that as a matter of principle, for perhaps it is of historical origin, but


I am a little surprised that the arrangement is that the random check sample is of only 20 per cent. of incoming vehicles. I appreciate that that is a minimum and that in fact the number inspected is in excess of that, but I suggest to the Minister that there is something amiss here, because the ports give opportunity for checking to see that the law is being carried out, irrespective of whether the vehicle is foreign.
Opportunity should be taken when vehicles enter the country to see that all is in order, and the ports give ideal opportunity for this. This is particularly true of lorries coming from abroad. I know there are some arrangements now, but I should like to know exactly what happens. Many people are of the opinion that lorries are not weighed and that many are overweight.
The question of road fund licences arises. I was told in a letter dated 5th June that in the Metropolitan Police district alone the number of reports of licences out of date and of unlicensed vehicles in 1972 was 380,023. I know that there is a great deal of public concern about this, and one would have thought there ought to be checking on this at the ports as well.
Therefore I have extended the range of this debate to the whole matter of what the Government do at the ports and what they intend to do over a whole range of matters. It includes the nature of cargoes and the Customs arrangements. This is probably not the responsibility of the hon. Gentleman who has so kindly waited to reply to me. That I appreciate, but, of course, it will become important next year, in January 1974, when the EEC arrangements will change the existing ones.
I understand from the Minister's letter and from the motoring organisations I have contacted that in 1974, under the EEC regulations, it will be not possible for us to make even the random checks on insurance we do at the moment. If that is so, I find it salutary and disturbing that a Community directive can prohibit something which seems to be a matter of common sense and something in which, I would have thought, the Government would have protected our citizens from risks and dangers from relatively uninsured vehicles from

abroad. I know this is the law at the moment, but such action would have added great weight to the AA's case that there should be third party insurance for damages of this sort.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman tells us why the Government are clinging to the view that there should be no compulsory third party insurance for damage, why the Community has apparently made even the present checks impossible from 1st January next, and whether, in view of the difficulties people will have in reclaiming money from damage actions, he will reconsider the whole question of third party insurance and the question of reciprocity. My constituent is a victim of the present situation.
Irrespective of the merits of the general issue of entering the EEC, this is just the sort of situation in which our citizens should be protected even more. But apparently the risks are to increase. If we have joined the EEC for mutual benefit, which is the object of the exercise, surely we could have reciprocal arrangements which would permit our citizens to get their rights for damage to their vehicles without recourse to international courts, which is not only a lengthy process but very expensive.
The present situation of inspection at ports and the fact that we have only spot checks even for our own vehicles seems inefficient. The situation in January 1974 is full of question marks. I hope the debate gives the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to explain why the Government hold to their present view and, to the perhaps unsuspecting public, what is to happen in January 1974, and not least to give some satisfaction to my constituent, who, I hope, will, following the debate, find it unnecessary to take the matter to an international court in order to regain damages to his car suffered in West London, which may have been a relatively minor affair, since no life or injury was involved, but which to him is a financial liability and may be such to many other people even between now and January next.

6.8 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Keith Speed): The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) has raised an issue which I know is of interest


and concern to all those who use our roads. He has done so in the context of the system adopted at our ports to check that vehicles, particularly heavy lorries, coming here from abroad have adequate insurance cover. But as he has made clear, his interest goes wider than this, and extends to the courses open to any British citizen who suffers loss, whether by way of personal injury or damage to his property, as the result of an accident involving a foreign vehicle and for which the foreign driver was responsible.
Some parts of what the hon. Gentleman said go beyond my immediate departmental responsibilities, but I will try to deal with them, and in any case will call them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
The purpose of the requirement on users of motor vehicles to have insurance cover against certain liabilities is, of course, to ensure that drivers who incur a liability through their own negligence have a source of money from which they can meet that liability.
Thus, ever since 1930 the Road Traffic Acts have contained a requirement for motor insurance policies to cover any liability for the death of, or personal injury to, a third party. There was in the original 1930 Act what I think is now generally regarded as a loophole, in that this requirement did not require liabilities to voluntary passengers to be insured—although, of course, many vehicle owners in fact had such cover. This loophole has now been closed as the result of a Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) with all-party support.
So we now have the position that the law affords protection to anyone injured—or to the dependants of anyone killed—as the result of a driver's negligence—whatever the nationality of the driver, since the law applies equally to our own and foreign motorists here.
I should perhaps mention here that the law does not require liability for property damage to be insured; although here again many vehicle owners do in fact have such insurance. I am sure the hon. Gentleman does, and I certainly do. I will not go into the whys and wherefores of this argument, which has been

raised several times. I have received no representations from the AA or anyone else about the problems which the lack of compulsory damage insurance causes. I will merely point out that it is a simple and prudent matter for anyone owning property, whether it be a motor vehicle or anything else—the principle extends far beyond the range of motor vehicles—to insure it against accidental damage, and so recover any loss from his own insurer.
The protection—in the financial sense—of people injured in road accidents goes wider, however, than our having made insurance a legal requirement. Of course, any law involves enforcement, and this aspect is particularly germane to our debate tonight and the problem of the hon. Gentleman's constituent. But beyond this there is another safeguard. I refer to our arrangements made, under a formal agreement dating from 1946, with the Motor Insurers' Bureau.
The effect of this is that the bureau will meet any judgment in respect of a compulsorily insurable liability which is not met by the judgment debtor. This means that anyone who establishes a claim for personal injury against a motorist who is subject to the motor insurance law has the meeting of that claim guaranteed by the bureau if, for example, the offending motorist is uninsured, whatever the reason for the absence of insurance. This arrangement applies whatever the nationality of the driver concerned, or of the owner of the vehicle involved. The bureau also deals with claims against unidentified drivers.
I have gone into this at some length before coming to the particular subject of the port checks on insurance and other matters raised by the hon. Member—

Mr. Spearing: The letter I have from the AA of 18th June states specifically:
It appears that the Department of the Environment has no intention of promoting such legislation because it claims to be unaware of any significant number of cases where the loss has not been recoverable through the medium of civil proceedings.
That implies that there has been an exchange in this matter.

Mr. Speed: The AA may have been in touch with the Department but I have


no personal knowledge of any problems, apart from individual letters from hon. Members. I am prepared to look into this. It is not entirely a matter for the Department. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is involved, because the matter goes way beyond vehicle insurance and applies to property and other insurance. I shall be happy to look at the correspondence with the AA, to see whether we should consider this again.
As I hope I have made clear, in relation to the financial protection which the law is designed to give to people injured through a driver's negligence, this is fully safeguarded whatsoever the nationality of the driver concerned by the arrangements of the Motor Insurers' Bureau to which I have referred.
But I do not argue—or even try to do so—that, because the purpose of the law is guaranteed through the bureau, there should be no enforcement of it. This would be a quite untenable proposition. No one would try to suggest that because the bureau will meet liabilities that should have been insured but were not, there is no need to enforce the law. Neither we nor the bureau would regard this as acceptable, if only because the bureau's funds come ultimately from a very small proportion of the premiums paid by the law-abiding motorists.
It is not unreasonable to have some regard to the consequences—or perhaps it would be better to say the lack of them—when considering the adequacy or otherwise of any particular level of enforcement activity. We must bear in mind, too, that the idea of 100 per cent. enforcement, however desirable, of any particular road traffic measure—not just insurance—can rarely, if ever, be met. Practicalities inevitably get in the way, and we have to recognise them.
Checks at ports on the possession of valid insurance cover by foreign motorists and other drivers arriving here are carried out on my right hon. Friend's behalf by the motoring organisations—the AA and RAC. They do a number of other jobs on an agency basis for my Department. This arrangement goes back many years and is well established. The Continental motoring associations do the same for Continental Governments.
I do not want to weary the House by quoting—or re-quoting—a lot of figures. I would just place on record that although these organisations have undertaken to check 20 per cent. of incoming vehicles, in fact they check a far higher proportion than this.
The incidence of vehicles discovered arriving without insurance is only just over 1 per cent. For commercial vehicles, it is very much less—only 0·18 per cent. I am told that virtually all of these drivers take out the necessary insurance before driving on—which is, of course, a good argument for having checks in the first place. In addition, the Department's staff, in conjunction with weights and measures officials, examine some incoming foreign goods vehicles; the proportion is about 4 per cent. of those accompanied by drivers. They are checked for conformity with some British traffic regulations, notably those on loading, drivers' hours and records and road haulage permits. When a green card is not carried the driver is notified, and so far no difficulty in arranging cover has occurred. The Minister is authorised a substantial increase in enforcement staff; there are now being recruited, and I expect the proportion of goods vehicles checked to rise to about 10 per cent. by the end of the summer.
An answer was given by my noble Friend the Under-Secretary in the other place last week which showed that from 1st August 1972 to 31st May this year approximately 6,000 foreign vehicles had been examined under the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972 by the Department's examiners and weights and measures officials. Of those vehicles, 1,200 were found to be overweight, 17 were mechanically defective, 58 had no permit or short-term operator's licence, and 79 contravened the hours and records regulations. Before the 1972 Act, 80 per cent. of all vehicles coming into the country were overweight. This dropped to 20 per cent. after the passing of the Act. In the last three months of this period, it had dropped again to 17 per cent. The change is clearly downwards, and the Act is having its effect.
Nevertheless, we take the view that in all the circumstances the present level of checks is a not unreasonable one, bearing


in mind four considerations. First, the checks which are carried out—and here perhaps I could pay tribute to the AA and the RAC for their help in this important work—show that the incidence of uninsured foreign vehicles is pretty low.
Secondly, if one is unfortunate enough to be injured through the negligence of a driver of one of these vehicles, the arrangements with the Motor Insurers' Bureau to which I have referred guarantee that the compensation due in law will be paid. Here I may perhaps interject that even if we had 100 per cent. checks this would not ensure that visiting motorists had insurance to cover their liability for property damage. We could check only on insurance to comply with our law—this is all that insurance "green cards" indicate.
Thirdly, practical difficulties at most ports would mean, I am sure, that 100 per cent. checks would impose delays and result in unacceptable congestion in port areas. I spent considerable time recently visiting ports. Great strides have been made in getting people through as quickly as possible. The Customs "green channel" has been one improvement. However the layout at some ports, especially at peak and busy seasons, does not lend itself to 100 per cent. checks, with all the delays that they might involve.
The fourth reason is that as from 1st January 1974, the situation will change radically as a result of our entry into the European Economic Communities. Under a directive on motor vehicle insurance, which will take effect in the United Kingdom on 1st January next, every motor insurance policy issued in a member State of the Communities will include cover against those liabilities which are compulsorily insurable in every other member State. To take an example, when a German owner of a lorry or car takes out his ordinary domestic motor insurance policy, it will not only give him the cover for which he has asked for driving in Germany, but it will automatically include the cover required by our Road Traffic Acts if he uses his vehicle in the United Kingdom. In law, there will be no need for separate insurance to cover vehicle use in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the Communities. This requirement will be

backed up by an agreement between the Motor Insurers' Bureaux under which, if a motorist nevertheless drives without insurance, his own national Bureau will meet any liability he may incur if that liability is compulsorily insurable under the law of the country in which the accident happened. The effect of this will be to remove the need for any check on vehicles coming from any other EEC country, and the Directive in fact precludes such checks in the interests of free movement, except, of course, in the event of an accident. The situation will be that to be uninsured when visiting the UK the German, the French, the Dutch or the Danish motorist would also have to have ignored the requirement for motor insurance in his own country.

Mr. Spearing: It will not help on the question of damage only. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that unless the law is changed the situation that I have described will continue.

Mr. Speed: I will come to that point later.
In the unlikely event of his having done so, then any compulsorily insurable liability which he incurred here—for example, if he negligently injured a British pedestrian—would be met by the German Bureau, although the British Bureau would handle the claim.
On the other hand, the Directive also requires that every non-EEC vehicle entering a country within the EEC must be checked at the first EEC frontier and not allowed to proceed until possession of EEC-wide cover is established. We shall, of course, be revising our system of port checks to comply with these arrangements.
In the short time remaining before 1st January I hope the House will agree that, even if there is room for argument whether our present level of checks should formally be 20 per cent., 50 per cent., 75 per cent. or any other figure, it would be both unnecessary and impossible to arrange for 100 per cent. checks to be undertaken.
Finally, I turn to the subject of the difficulties with which a British citizen is sometimes faced in trying to get the compensation due to him following an accident in this country caused by a visiting foreign motorist. The House will


understand that the problems of legal actions do not fall within my particular departmental responsibilities—I am not a lawyer, and I confess that I sometimes tend to get lost in the legal ramifications—but since the hon. Gentleman referred to this aspect I will offer some remarks which I hope will be helpful and understood.
In the last resort, of course, any claim for damages, whether for personal injury or property damage, can be settled only in the courts. However, I believe that the great majority are in fact settled by negotiation and, in relation to foreign motorists, that there are no particular problems in relation to personal injury claims where the motorist is properly covered by a "green card". These are handled by the Motor Insurers' Bureau. I do not think there are any particular problems in that area.
I accept that this is no comfort to anyone whose claim is ignored or disputed by a foreign motorist who has left the country. It may, of course, be a claim for property damage. A court action is the only course open in such circumstances. It is possible to take such action in a foreign court, but it is more convenient to use the English courts. Where the defendant lives abroad, this needs the leave of the High Court, but this is usually given in the case of a road accident prima facie caused by a foreign driver's negligence. I should perhaps add that anyone suing a foreigner in the English courts is eligible for legal aid under the same conditions as apply to any other case.
Enforcement of judgments—that is, actually collecting any damages awarded—can be more difficult. To a greater or lesser extent this is likely to involve proceedings in foreign courts. However, reciprocal—I stress the word "reciprocal"—arrangements exist for the enforcement of money judgments in Austria, Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Israel, The Netherlands and Norway. These arrangements help the process considerably.
Here again, entry into the European Economic Communities will change the position for the better. We have undertaken to accede to the European Judgments Convention of 1968. This provides for the almost automatic enforcement of civil and commercial judgments throughout the Communities. Negotiations are going on for United Kingdom accession to this convention. When these steps and the necessary implementing legislation are completed, we shall have gone a long way towards solving the problems of taking and enforcing actions against motorists from other EEC countries.
I accept that this still leaves the present situation for countries outside the EEC, but for countries inside the EEC—the vast majority of motorists entering this country come from the EEC—the situation will be radically improved.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that the damages situation generally is not compulsorily insurable here. It has to be taken to the courts. Nevertheless, the reciprocal arrangements cover a number of non-EEC countries, and this new convention to which we are acceding covering EEC countries can only improve matters considerably. It means that from 1st January 1974 all EEC vehicles are automatically covered by insurance here and non-EEC vehicles coming from an EEC country will have been checked.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this subject tonight, even at this late hour, and for the opportunity of explaining to him and, I hope, a larger audience what is involved in our present methods of checking and what the situation will be from 1st January 1974. I believe that from 1st January 1974—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Monday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-five minutes past Six o'clock a.m.